Every time ive seen an article about worst state it’s always Mississippi :-/. But these days thanks to awful leadership Florida and Texas are making a case for the crown.
You're not wrong.
Mississippi is typically ranked very low due to a history of poor public education standards as well as being a battleground for civil rights. Not much has changed.
Fortunately for Mississippi, Florida man is working overtime towards the enshitifcation of their own education system.
There's absolutely a direct correlation between education, human rights, and a higher standard of living.
Growing up in Alabama we used to joke that the unofficial AL state motto is “Well, at least we ain’t Mississippi” and Mississippi’s motto is “Well, at least we ain’t Missis…AW DAMMIT”
Ditto for Louisiana, it was always “well at least we aren’t Mississippi “.
Louisiana has the highest violent crime rate. It is the last state I would live in.
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, the 5 most hazardous states in the U.S. in 2023 are:
Louisiana: Overall Crime Rate of 537.5/100,000 people, making it the most dangerous.
Mississippi: Overall Crime Rate of 413.2/100,000 people.
Alaska: Despite a low population, a high Overall Crimes Rate of 386.2/100,000 people.
Arkansas: Overall Crime Rate of 385.9/100,000 people.
New Mexico: Overall Crime Rate of 369.5/100,000 people.(More info about this)
You ain’t kiddin!
I've also heard "Thank God for Mississippi" as a slogan for any of the underperformer states
Mississippi also just has really bad infrastructure. Like water is a concern in places there
It's a race to the bottom, and Florida isn't here for the second place!
(Or participation trophy? I can't decide what fits better)
Texas is full of pissed of GOP's that are all hot headed and strapped. The excessive heat isn't helping much.
Have you ever visited Texas? Check out Austin and Dallas. Very different than what you'd expect based on the news.
I live in Austin, the good isn’t good enough for me to want to stay. As soon as my kids are done with high school, I’m looking for somewhere else to live.
Depends on the part of Dallas. Some of the suburbs are very conservative (Southlake is an awful place for example).
I'm not from the US, but visited Dallas in 2009. I remember myself and a couple of friends from the area going into a Waffle House.
First thing I saw was a sign on the door saying to leave your guns outside. When we walked in, there was a haggard old waitress with a smokers rasp going "what can I git ya?" and a mulleted stoner in the kitchen with a thousand yard stare. It was like I'd walked into the set of a movie and while we had breakfast my mates were quite amused at how... roadstop I kept saying it was.
Kept waiting for a trucker named Bubba to walk in.
Also in AR a waitress asked me if we had boats in our country, another swore up and down that she had seen me on some Australian renovation show on cable, and while watching TV an episode of Aussie Gold Hunters had subtitles for the Australians even though they were speaking clear as day English.
The South is bizarre.
The southern states still are the worst and I assume will continue to be the worst due to conservatism
Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas are usually at the bottom of the rankings when it comes to the metrics you mentioned, especially education. Other southern states aren't much better.
Seeing as how modern conservatism has become nothing more than a culture war against the things that improve the general well-being of a population, yes it will continue to be that way.
Depends. I'm dead serious when I ask this, but are you black, Latino, a woman, queer, Jewish or Muslim, trans or non-binary, liberal or any flavor of politics to the left of Right wing authoritarian fascist, or any combination of those groups? If so, then stay the hell out of any state south of Virginia and east of Illinois. They aren't just bad. They are potentially deadly, increasingly as a matter or literal public policy. If you aren't one of those groups, than you aren't in physical existential danger. You'll just be stuck in a nightmare hellhole of poverty and ignorance. But you'll be safe. Mostly.
Honestly, I've been everywhere in the continental US. Been to every state, seen just about all there is to see driving over the road for fifteen years, and I can tell you that the southeast is damn near a third world country compared to everywhere else. The infrastructure is so bad it reminds me of when I stayed in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1993. And it's only gotten worse. I have no desire to ever return now that I'm not required to for my job. Florida used to be the one shining exception, except now it's embracing a return to 1930s Germany. Stay out of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas in particular.
It's always the southern states that rate lowest in damn near every category.
Louisiana and Mississippi, no doubt. Florida is just shit, it has no redeeming qualities and everything is expensive, so that's pretty bad too
The news about Florida exaggerates life here. It's not at all like you see in the headlines or whatever the "Floridaman" posts you always see. Life is fine. There's good and bad. Painting it as some "DO NOT ENTER - UNSAFE TERRORIST ZONE" is utter bullshit.
That being said, it would be great if New Yorkers and New Jerseyites fucked off back to their states and stopped buying all the properties here.
Are you LGBT?
Yeah but when being trans may mewb tiyr kids will get taken from you its a do not enter state for you
Disagree. It's not just the laws, but the public support that has me crazy here. My very Catholic coworker so fully supports the governor that when the Catholic Church came out against some of his stances, she said they were the ones in the wrong! Those stances being that it should not be illegal to give a ride to an immigrant as thats just being a good neighbor, and it's silly to expand the death penalty. Her daughter works for Disney too. She doesn't care. Guy could come in and take a shit on the floor and she would try to explain how that was the most moral thing he could do, and how refreshing it is to have a sensible governor.
Her views are not abnormal here.
Pretty privileged thing to say... Maybe when you and I are the ones they start creating laws against existing, then it'll actually be bad?
As someone who has lived in ~~4~~ (forgot Rhode Island) 5 different states, and two very different areas of California, the worst by my metrics was Hawaii.
Yes, it has lovely weather, yes, it is a great place to visit... That does not make it a lovely place to live. Once you've done all the touristy things, you have to deal with the day to day. Prices are just higher for everything. It all has to come from somewhere, and it's in the middle of the ocean.
My wife is born and raised in Texas. She thinks churches on every corner is normal. Now she is a travelling surgical tech and falling in love with upstate NY. It's not my beloved Pacific Northwest, but I will gladly move anywhere away from these loco church people.
We’re all polishing brass on the Titanic
Alabama. Hands down.
It honestly depends on who you are. If you hate guns you don't want to live in a pro gun state or vice versa. If you love pot then you will hate anti pot states and vice versa. If you hate corruption don't go to new York. If you hate reduculous cost of living don't live in new England area or the west coast popular states like Cali. If you want to boondocks and live a nomadic lifestyle the Midwest is much more forgiving to the lifestyle, east coast is much harder. So take an inventory of your personal political identity and what your dream state would look like condusive to your beliefs and lifestyle.
The worst US state to live in is the state of poverty
IIRC Louisiana is at the bottom of most lists in the US for all kinds of factors, including financial. Florida (of course) and Texas are in a race to the bottom, each having a horrible ghoul of a Governor and an insane, FAR right government that leans so hard on its culture war that you'd think it had a stilt on just the other foot. California has two urban centers with a cost of living so damn high that you need a 30 year mortgage for a tent in ditch.
Here in my home of Illinois, taxes were jacked up to fix a budget so corruptly mismanaged that the State was so broke that it broke broke, and where there's an even chance that any given governor from the last 50 years was convicted of a felony. And my home city of Chicago has a police union so crooked and powerful that they're basically the government, and the mistreatment of the poor has kicked murder rates up to record levels. Again. At least our food is awesome though - suck it NYC.
Oh and New York sucks for poorly defined (by us Chicagoans) reasons, but especially their Pizza, and all their sports teams.
What do you consider in determining the worst?
As a Californian, I'd say California. Cost of living here is ridiculous, and pay isn't keeping up. Gas at $6/gallon. Electricity bill skyrockets when using A/C, but with temperatures regularly surpassing 85F and being a desert state, we don't have a choice. Water bill goes up every year because the water company raises rates after a drought to make up for lost profit and never lowers the price back down after. Fast food meals are now $15 a meal, and store-bought produce isn't much cheaper. There are car thefts and police chases every single day, often multiple in a day. Despite firearm related laws, there are still armed criminals committing crimes. Our two biggest natural disasters are wildfires and earthquakes, though in recent years there have been a few waterspouts out on the ocean, don't remember if they ever made landfall or not. Real estate pricing here is out of control. The people here don't know how to drive, especially in the rain. People are rude and uncaring most of the time. The schools get paid a lot of money but they pay it all out to pensions of retired teachers rather than active working teachers, which means education suffers greatly.
Sure, the weather here is usually nice, and there are a lot of entertainment centers (which are expensive by the way), but aside from that, California isn't very nice to live in.
The only reasons I still live here are because I am too poor to move away, and my family is still here.
I just drove from California to Yellowstone and back for vacation. The gas prices were pretty close throughout the drive. And fast food costs were the same everywhere.
Also, teachers retirement is paid through Calsters in California. That's an entirely separate fund in an entirely separate state agency than education. It's a pension system where the teachers pay in and the state pays as well while they are working like any other private company's pension system.
How much do you think you'd need to get out? (Asking, in a kidding way, as a Californian who is tired of these memes about how it's bad to live here when you're just describing any major urban center in the world.)
Edit: you're not wrong about the challenges, it's just that they're not unique to California.
Mississippi reigns supreme.
Florida is not actually dangerous lol that was just a publicity stunt.
Have the Midwest states been mentioned? Bill Bryson describes them as interminably dull. Not sure how they'd stack up against the deep south, though.
Dull vs Dangerous
Yes.
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!