On Tuesday, President Obama, if precedent holds, will declare that the state of America’s union is “strong.”
In 1931, H.L. Mencken and his fellow editor at the American Mercury, Charles Angoff, wondered the same thing. In a three-part series the magazine called “The Worst American State,” the pair compiled dozens of rankings of population data, largely from the 1930 census, determined to anoint the best and worst of the 48 states (and the District of Columbia), according to various measures of wealth, culture, health and public safety. In the end, Mencken and Angoff declared Connecticut and Massachusetts “the most fortunate American States,” and they deemed Mississippi “without a serious rival to the lamentable preëminence of the Worst American State” (diaeresis credit to Mencken, who, it should be noted, was from Maryland, No. 28 on his list). “The results will probably surprise no one,” they wrote. “Most Americans, asked to name the most generally civilized American State, would probably name Massachusetts at once, and nine out of ten would probably nominate Mississippi as the most backward.”
The methodology behind their exercise might not have been airtight, and the presumed definition of what is a “good” and “bad” state was clearly swayed by the writers’ prejudices and the time period; aside from the fact that many of their rankings had only partial data, consider that representation in the “American Men of Science” directory was factored into each state’s rank for culture, and lynchings for public safety.
With this in mind, Politico Magazine rounded up 14 different state rankings from reputable sources like the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI, and on important factors such as high school graduation rates, per capita income, life expectancy and crime rate. Then we averaged out each state’s 14 rankings to come up with a master list—atop which sits none other than New Hampshire. The approach isn’t scientific or comprehensive (hey, neither was Mencken’s), and not all states are created equal—California’s economy is the world’s eighth largest, for instance, and Texas’s population outranks that of most countries. We also hold no grudges against the State of Mississippi, which came in last not just overall but on four of the individual lists, and certainly don’t attribute its woes to “hordes of barbaric peasants,” as Mencken did. But given that eight of the lowest-ranking states on our list overlap with the bottom 10 on his, maybe less has changed in the past 83 years than you’d think.
Overall rank (1 = best)
Rank
State
Governor
1
New Hampshire
Maggie Hassan (D)
2
Minnesota
Mark Dayton (D)
3
Vermont
Peter Shumlin (D)
4
Utah
Gary Herbert (R)
5
Massachusetts
Deval Patrick (D)
6
Wyoming
Matthew Mead (R)
7
Colorado
John Hickenlooper (D)
8
Iowa
Terry Branstand (R)
9
Washington
Jay Inslee (D)
10
Connecticut
Dannel Malloy (D)
11
Nebraska
Dave Heineman (R)
12
New Jersey
Chris Christie (R)
13
Montana
Steve Bullock (D)
14
Maine
Paul LePage (R)
15
Virginia
Terry McAuliffe (D)
16
North Dakota
Jack Dalrymple (R)
17
Hawaii
Neil Abercrombie (D)
18
South Dakota
Dennis Daugaard (R)
19
Wisconsin
Scott Walker (R)
20
Idaho
Butch Otter (R)
21
Maryland
Martin O'Malley (D)
22
Kansas
Sam Brownback (R)
23
Oregon
John Kitzhaber (D)
24
Delaware
Jack Markell (D)
25
Alaska
Sean Parnell (R)
26
Pennsylvania
Tom Corbett (R)
27
New York
Andrew Cuomo (D)
28
Rhode Island
Lincoln Chafee (I)
39
Illinois
Pat Quinn (D)
30
California
Jerry Brown (D)
31
Missouri
Jay Nixon (D)
32
Indiana
Mike Pence (R)
33
Arizona
Jan Brewer (R)
34
Ohio
John Kasich (R)
35
Texas
Rick Perry (R)
36
Michigan
Rick Snyder (R)
37
Florida
Rick Scott (R)
38
New Mexico
Susana Martinez (R)
49
North Carolina
Pat McCrory (R)
40
Nevada
Brian Sandoval (R)
41
Oklahoma
Mary Fallin (R)
42
Georgia
Nathan Deal (R)
43
West Virginia
Earl Ray Tomblin (D)
44
Kentucky
Steve Beshear (D)
45
South Carolina
Nikki Haley (R)
46
District of Columbia (tie)
Vincent Gray (D, mayor)
47
Alabama
Robert Bentley (R)
48
Tennessee
Bill Haslam (R)
49
Arkansas
Mike Beebe (D)
50
Louisiana
Bobby Jindal (R)
51
Mississippi
Phil Bryant (R)
