What’s the freest state in America?
According to a study by political scientists William Ruger, president of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), and Jason Sorens, a senior research faculty member at AIER, it’s New Hampshire. In the 7th edition of their study of freedom in the 50 states, they report on a number of variables that go into their measure. Unlike other measures of freedom, theirs’ includes not just economic freedom but also what they call personal freedom.
I’ve never liked that term because so much of economic freedom is personal freedom too, but I get what they’re driving at. Even though I’ve thought about it a lot, I still haven’t come up with a satisfactory term. Their measures of personal freedom include incarceration and arrests, gambling freedom, gun rights, tobacco freedom, marriage freedom, educational freedom, asset forfeiture, travel freedom, and a host of others. As I look through the list, I see that a lot of these also involve economic freedom. Asset forfeiture, for example, often violates property rights. And what is tobacco freedom, if not the freedom to buy, sell, and smoke tobacco? (Missouri, by the way, leads on tobacco freedom.)
One striking thing about their measure of overall freedom is that even though it’s composed of those two components (economic and personal freedom), New Hampshire wins on both: it’s the freest economically and the freest overall. (Although Nevada is #1 on personal freedom.)
One thing that becomes quite clear is that the freest states, whether measured by overall freedom or economic freedom tend to be the “red states.”
A big aside on red and blue. When I finally got a color TV in 1979 and started to watch U.S. election results, the states won by a Republican were colored blue and those won by a Democrat were colored red. That made sense because red was associated with socialism and communism and blue was associated with conservatism. I still remember, when I became a fan of Marty Feldstein in the 1970s, a big Fortune magazine article with the title “Martin Feldstein’s Electric Blue Economic Prescriptions.” I think the colors switched in the 1996 election when the networks started using red for Republicans and blue for Democrats.
It’s worth taking some time to pull up the study and click on various states.
READER COMMENTS
steve
Nov 25 2023 at 10:41am
Unless I missed it they dont seem to include reproductive freedom and freedom to vote.
Steve
Richard Fulmer
Nov 25 2023 at 2:11pm
In which states are people not free to vote and why?
steve
Nov 25 2023 at 9:04pm
Many states require voter ID. We know that there is essentially no voter fraud of the kind that would be stopped by voter ID. It’s the equivalent of unnecessary licensing. Also, several states dont allow you to vote if you have a criminal record even after having served your time. Sometimes even when the state passes a referendum to accomplish that but the legislature overrules the voters.
Steve
Jon Murphy
Nov 25 2023 at 9:40pm
Voter ID is not the same as not having the freedom to vote. If it were, then no state in the Union would have freedom to vote; in every state, you have to prove your identity somehow.
Besides, I have lived (and voted) in several states that require an ID: NH, VA, and LA. You get the voter ID as part of the process of registering to vote.
steve
Nov 26 2023 at 12:42pm
Voter ID is the most restrictive form. I have only had to sign in and they compare signatures. Voter fraud of the kind that would be stopped by voter ID is so rare that when they tried to make it required they couldn’t find enough cases so they didnt include that as a reason to have voter ID. So just as in states where you need a license to be a barber, for no real reason, in some states you have to go through the hassle of getting a voter ID, for no reason. If you hate the intrusion of big government I would think you especially hate it when there is no possible reason for the intrusion.
Steve
Jon Murphy
Nov 26 2023 at 1:33pm
It’s difficult to call voter ID restrictive when they give you the ID.
Richard Fulmer
Nov 26 2023 at 11:12pm
Minority voter participation increased in Georgia despite the states’ much reviled voter ID laws. In addition, polls indicate that minorities largely support such laws. Apparently, they have a higher opinion of their ability to obtain and use an ID than does the average Progressive.
Jon Murphy
Nov 27 2023 at 7:57am
I don’t know who they “they” is you’re referring to, but, coincidently, we had a situation just this past weekend here in Louisiana where voter ID may have prevented election fraud that could overturn an election.
In Caddo Parish, the sheriff was elected by just 1 vote. However, during the recall, they noticed that one person had voted twice. This was noted because their ID was pinged twice.
Whether or not this is an attempt to defraud an election or an honest mistake is still an open question, as well as who they voted for (if they voted for the Democrat, then the election would go to the Republican. If they voted for the Republican, there will be no change).
Now, this outcome is extraordinarily rare (as far as I know, this is only the 3rd time in US history where an election was determined by 1 vote). And, it is an open and legitimate question as to whether voter ID is the best way to prevent these sorts of problems. I just bring it up because the timing of the event is funny given it is occuring at the same time we are having this discussion.
Michael B
Nov 27 2023 at 12:00pm
In my state/town, I show up to the polling location on Election Day and state my address and name. No other ID required.
Things I’ve never had to do in my life despite being a regular voter:
Produce some form of ID at the polling location.
Wait in line for more than 30 minutes. I would guess that my median wait time is under 5 minutes.
There are many places where one must wait for an hour or more to vate, and that amounts to vote suppression.
BS
Nov 27 2023 at 2:18pm
The purpose of voter ID is not to prevent fraud; the purpose is to buttress the perception of trust.
John C Goodman
Nov 25 2023 at 10:58am
The networks switched the colors of the parties precisely because they didn’t want to associate Democrats with “red.”
Dylan
Nov 25 2023 at 12:20pm
According to this article it used to switch depending on network and election and was kind of random until the 2000 election, when both USA Today and the NYT printed full color maps and both used red for Republicans. They blame the drag out of that election and the maps getting drilled into all of our heads for why it stuck that way.
Thanks for sharing this. Even though I paid attention to pre-2000 election coverage, I have no memory of the colors being switched preciously.
AMW
Nov 25 2023 at 12:42pm
This was my recollection as well.
Scott Sumner
Nov 25 2023 at 12:35pm
In California, Tesla can sell their cars directly to the public. Texas doesn’t allow that. In California, abortion is legal, pot is legal, and physician assisted suicide is legal. Not in Texas. Texas has far more people in prison, especially on a per capita basis.
Texas has lower taxes and fewer regulations.
Texas comes in at #17 while California is #48.
Andrew_FL
Nov 25 2023 at 4:39pm
You forgot to add that petty theft is legal in California. What glorious freedom, to steal and to kill! Truly they should be #1.
steve
Nov 26 2023 at 12:43pm
Citation please. It was my understanding that some petty theft is now a misdemeanor and not a felony. I dont think it is legal.
Steve
David Boaz
Nov 27 2023 at 1:28pm
Some, if not all, of those issues are included in the many categories that are rated. The report does not conclude that New Hampshire gets a positive score on every single item, or the California is a zero on every item.
Glenn Corey
Nov 25 2023 at 8:54pm
Recently I came across this headline: “New Hampshire falls to 40th on CNBC’s annual ‘Top States for Business’ list” (https://www.sentinelsource.com/state_news/new-hampshire-falls-to-40th-on-cnbc-s-annual-top-states-for-business-list/article_544bd8cf-3d30-5b1e-8380-b14af463804c.html). Is anyone familiar with this? Also, drugs are not legal and won’t be as long as the current governor remains in office. Someone I know who is very involved in the Free State Project recently told me their governor, Sununu, is a right-wing authoritarian. I’ve read other articles about how it’s not as easy in NH to start a business as in other states. I realize the score is based on several measures, but it surprises me that NH is the freest state in the union.
Jon Murphy
Nov 26 2023 at 10:20am
Sununu is not an authoritarian, right wing or otherwise.
NH is difficult to start s business because of taxes and fees.
David Boaz
Nov 27 2023 at 1:30pm
If New Hampshire has more taxes and fees than other states, I assume it lost points on those issues.
Jon Murphy
Nov 27 2023 at 1:40pm
Yes, agreed. And they gained in other ways. My point to Glenn Corey was that NH is not the authoritarian hellhole his free stater friend seems to think.
johnson85
Nov 28 2023 at 11:46am
A lot of those top states for business lists include things unrelated to economic freedom and possibly sometimes that are antithetical to it.
For example, lots of those rankings include labor costs. Much of that is driven by regulation and taxes, but a huge chunk is obviously just wages. So lower wage states will get a positive boost from that.
They also will get positive (or negative) impacts to their ranking based on percentage of population completing high school, completing some college, and having a college degree.
Some of those studies will add or deduct points for major infrastructure, whether access to interstate highways, rail, ports, and/or how many places have multimodal transportation options.
I don’t know that I’ve seen any rankings that explicitly count them, but I could see the best place to do business rankings giving positive marks for things like subsidies for relocations and/or new business whereas an economic freedom analysis that would show up as a negative (either directly if they counted it or indirectly through their tax rates).
johnson85
Nov 28 2023 at 11:50am
I see one major flaw with these rankings is that it does not appear to include unfunded pension obligations as part of the debt load. While eventually states with grossly underfunded pensions will have to give a haircut to pensioners, it’s not clear that they will be able to do so before bond holders and they almost certainly won’t be able to do so until there is a lot of economic wreckage in the state.
Comments are closed.