New England’s Best States To Make A Living
Thursday, April 04, 2013
How easy it is to make a good living might depend on where you live, and a new ranking from MoneyRates.com reveals which states are the easiest--and toughest--for making a living. Unfortunately, Rhode Island has ended up in the bottom 10 for 2013.
In fact, Rhode Island scored #3 on the 10 Worst States to Make a Living, outdone by only Mississippi (#2 worst) and Hawaii (#1 worst for 3 years in a row).
Compiling the ranking
Using average wage and unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, cost of living figures from C2ER (formerly ACCRA) and state tax information from Tax-Rates.org, MoneyRates.com calculated an average income figure for each state that included adjustments for taxes, inflation and the chances of finding a job in that state. Finally, those figures were furthered adjusted according to each state's Workplace Environment rankings from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index poll.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST"Employees in Rhode Island ranked their state dead last for quality of work environment," wrote Richard Barrington of RI's ranking. "Besides getting low marks qualitatively, Rhode Island struggles with two key quantitative issues: a high cost of living and a stubbornly high unemployment rate. At the end of 2012 that unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, the highest of any state."
The Best 10
None of the 10 Best States to Make a Living in 2013 were in New England. Washington led the pack this year at #1, followed by Virginia at #2, Colorado at #3, Texas at #4, and Wyoming at #5. Rounding out the Top 10 were Minnesota (#6), Nebraska, (#7), Utah (#8), Kansas (#9), and Oklahoma (#10).
To see more about the Best and Worst, as well as how all of New England's states did, see below.
Sources: Unemployment rates for February, 2013 from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Median household income 2011 from US Census; Average income tax rates from www.tax-rates.org, Work environment rank from Gallup Well-Being Index 2012.
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