Quality of life index puts Maryland 12th, behind Virginia and Delaware
By Meg Tully
Photo by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Maryland ranks 12th for overall quality of life out of the 50 states, according to a report released this week.
The study, published by the nonprofit, nonpartisan collaborative encyclopedia Ballotpedia, examined 19 different indices to determine quality of life from 1992 to 2012.
Neighboring states Virginia and Delaware both made the Top 10 rankings for overall quality of life, with Virginia at 7 and Delaware at 10. The state with the highest aggregate ranking was New Hampshire, and the worst performing state was Mississippi.
Virginia’s business record puts it above Maryland
Geoff Pallay, lead author of the study, said that Virginia and Maryland were similar in most data sets but Virginia outranked Maryland in best business surveys put out each year by publications like Forbes and CNBC.
“In all four of those different rankings, Maryland was out of the top 10 every year and actually for three of them it was in the 30s or the 40s,” Pallay said.
The only exception, he noted, was Maryland ranked 9th in the 2010 24/7 Wall Street Best/Worst Governed States.
In contrast, Virginia ranked in the first three spots for Forbes and CNBC’s rankings every year since 2006.
Maryland’s ranking increased during study period
Maryland was among five states that saw increases in rankings of more than 40% from the first half of the study to the second half. Maryland increased from 19.8 to 11.18.
Some of the data examined included: the poverty rate, best states for business as ranked by Forbes, real GDP per capita, unemployment rate, voter turnout and high school graduation rate.
Pallay said that there are regional externalities that contribute to quality of life, such as a regional economy or even better weather.
“By including so many indices, we’re hoping to cancel out the regional bias factor,” he said.
The report also aimed to get a big picture look by incorporating so much data and well-respected rankings, he said.
Maryland scored especially well in the state credit ranking category because the state maintained the highest possible credit rating for each of the 12 years an S&P credit rating was available. It tied with Delaware, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Utah and North Carolina for top slot in the credit rating category.
Third part of study will overlay quality of life with state political trends
The quality of life ranking is the second part in a three-part series published on Ballotpedia that will examine how partisan politics contribute to quality of life.
The third part, expected to be published in July, will overlay quality of life with partisan trends in the states.
“We’re interested to see what kind of correlations we can find between what partisanship and different trends lead to better outcomes for various states,” Pallay said.
Ballotpedia is published by the Lucy Burns Institute, a non-profit organization whose mission includes connecting people to politics and promoting free and open information.
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