The States of Our Union ... Are Not All Strong

We ranked all 50, from fabulous to failed.

By MARGARET SLATTERY
Politico.com, January 24, 2014

On Tuesday, President Obama, if precedent holds, will declare that the state of America’s union is “strong.”

Is it? One way to judge is by the state of the states of the union: How strong are they, and, dare we ask, which is the strongest?

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.”

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)

(More here.)