Where does Arizona fall out in ‘POLITICO’ ranking?
By Derek Robertson
LeBron James. Serena Williams. Lionel Messi. New Hampshire.
The Granite State might seem like an outlier in a group of historically dominant stars, but it joins their prestigious company with a fourth straight year atop POLITICO Magazine’s quasi-annual ranking of the 50 states of the union, including its tie in 2016 with Minnesota. New Hampshire leads the nation with its low poverty rate and infant mortality rate, as well as its high reading test scores and percentage of its population employed in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields, while also cracking the top five in lowest levels of crime, income inequality and unemployment.
He’s not always big on tradition, but it’s a decent bet that President Donald Trump will repeat his predecessors’ assertion that “the state of the union is strong”—perhaps even stronger than ever—when he gives his first official State of the Union address Tuesday. The individual states of the union, however, are another story entirely.
