President Trump will grace the nation tonight with his first State of the Union address (spoiler alert: tremendous), and in response, Politico has offered up its State of the States list—an annual ranking of all the best states in the country, including the District of Columbia.
North Carolina doesn’t get the worst marks in the nation—that dubious honor goes to Louisiana—but it doesn’t do well. According to Politico’s ranking, which culls from a range of data points, including poverty and unemployment rates, annual per capita income, the percentage of high school graduates, and more, the Tar Heel state comes in at number thirty-nine out of fifty-one.
When it comes to many of those indicators, North Carolina could be doing a little better. According to Politico, the state boasts an annual per capita income of $25,608 (compared to $33,821 in New Hampshire, which earned the number one spot, and $46,502 in the District of Columbia, which ranked thirty-eighth); a homeownership rate of 64.2 percent; and a life expectancy of nearly seventy-eight years. 15.4 percent of the population lives below the poverty and 4.5 percent are unemployed. The state gets a “
” score of 62.4, and about 31.8 percent of the population is obese. These data points, taken together, place North Carolina closer to the bottom of the list, where it has more or less hovered for the past several years.
You can check out the full list here if you’re so inclined.