Best and Worst Run States in America

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For the second year, 24/7 Wall St. has reviewed data on financial health, standard of living and government services by state to determine how well each state is managed. Based on this data, 24/7 Wall St. ranked the 50 states from the best to worst run. The best-run state is Wyoming. The worst-run state is California.

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To determine how well–or how poorly–a state is run, 24/7 Wall St. weighed each state’s financial health based on factors including credit score and debt. We also evaluated how a state uses its resources to provide its residents with high living standards, reviewing dimensions such as health insurance, employment rate, low crime and a good education. We considered hundreds of data sets and chose what we considered to be the 10 most important measurements of financial and government management.

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Best Run States:

1. Wyoming

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Wyoming comes in first place in 24/7 Wall St.’s Best Run States for the second year in a row. The state has high marks in many categories including high school graduation rate. A whopping 92.3% of state residents age 25 or older have at least a high school diploma–the highest rate in the country. The state also has the fourth lowest rate of violent crimes and the sixth lowest unemployment rate. {snip}

2. Nebraska

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{snip} Besides being financially sound, Nebraska also has an unemployment rate of 4.2%, the second lowest rate in the country. The state also has relatively low poverty, high graduation rates and the seventh lowest rate of foreclosures last month.

3. North Dakota

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4. Minnesota

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Minnesota moved up in the ranking from fifth to fourth due to its improvement in several categories, including violent crime rate and health insurance coverage. {snip} The state also continues to excel in the areas it did last year. Some 91.5% of the state’s adult population has graduated high school–the second highest percentage in the country. {snip}

5. Iowa

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Iowa’s greatest assets are its rates of educated and insured residents. Some 90.6% of residents 25 years and older have at least a high school diploma and only 9.3% of residents do not have health insurance. These are among the best rates in the country. {snip}

6. Utah

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{snip} The state has the fifth-lowest violent crime rate in the country, as well as the seventh-highest graduation rate in the country. {snip}

7. Vermont

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{snip} Residents are highly educated. It has the second lowest rate of violent crime in the country. {snip}

8. Virginia

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Virginia is the highest-ranked state in the southern U.S., largely because it does not suffer from many of the problems that plague the rest of the South. {snip} The state also has the sixth-lowest violent crime rate in the country, with just 213 incidents taking place in 2010 for every 100,000 people.

9. Kansas

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10. South Dakota

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Worst Run States:

50. California

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{snip} In the fiscal year 2009, the state spent $430 billion, roughly 14% of all the money spent by states in that year. Compared to its revenue, the state spent too much–California had the 10th lowest revenue per person, and spent the 15th most per person. California is the only state in the country to be rated A-, the lowest rating ever given to a state by S&P. Despite the huge amount the state spends each year, conditions remain poor. California has the second-lowest percentage of adults with a high school diploma in the country, the second-highest foreclosure rate and is tied for the second highest unemployment rate in the U.S.

49. Illinois

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{snip} The state performs poorly in most categories, but is worst when it comes to its credit rating. Illinois has a credit rating of A+, the second worst given to any state, behind only California. {snip}

48. Michigan

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Michigan has arguably suffered more than any state in post-industrial America. The state is one of just four with a credit rating of AA-, although its debt per capita is actually below average. The state ranks among the worst in the country for violent crime, unemployment, foreclosures and home price decline.

47. Arizona

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46. Nevada

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45. South Carolina

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{snip} Its state debt per capita is slightly below average. However, the state has the eighth highest poverty rate and the fourth highest unemployment rate. It also has the fifth highest rate of violent crime, with 597.7 crime committed per 100,000 people. This is actually an improvement from last year when the state’s violent crime rate was 731 per 100,000–the worst in the country.

44. Kentucky

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{snip} The state saw slight improvements in the percentage of its population with high school diplomas and poverty rate. Violent crime dropped significantly–now the 10th-lowest rate in the country, compared to the 17th-lowest last year. {snip}

43. Rhode Island

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Rhode Island has many positive attributes, including low violent crime rate and a relatively low poverty rate. However, the state’s spending is exceptionally high, and it has accumulated $8,716 in debt per capita. Nearly 20% of expenditures are for public education, yet compared with other states it has the 10th lowest percentage of adults who have graduated from high school.

42. Louisiana

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Louisiana remains in our bottom 10 again this year, although it has improved since last year, primarily because of decreases in unemployment and violent crime rate. In all, however, the state ranks poorly in most of the metrics we considered. Louisiana has the fifth-highest poverty rate in the country, the 10th-highest percentage of residents without health insurance coverage and the fifth lowest percentage of adults with a high school diploma.

41. New Mexico

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{snip} At 18.7%, the state has the second highest poverty rate in the country. Worst still, almost 20% of New Mexicans do not have health insurance. The state also has the highest rate of violent crime in the country.

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