Does CNBC’s “Best States” ranking make any sense?

by Rob Roper

Yogi Berra famously said of a once favorite Yankees hangout, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” I feel like there’s a way to tweak that phrase regarding Vermont’s just winning CNBC’s “Best States to Live” for the sixth straight year: “Nobody wants to live there anymore. It’s too nice.” Yeah, that doesn’t have the same ring as a true Yogi-ism, but you get the point. How is Vermont both the best place to live and the state with the most dramatic population decline in the country and a whopping six-plus out of ten residents surveyed saying they are planning to get the hell out of Dodge. This is, the word would be, “ironic.”

So, one has to ask what CNBC sees in Vermont that the majority of people who live here, at least for the time being, are missing? The way CNBC determines quality of life is based on 138 metrics across ten categories including crime rates, environmental/air quality, healthcare access, affordability, and outcomes; cost and availability of childcare, plus worker protections like wage policy, paid leave, and the right to organize; inclusiveness of state laws, including anti-discrimination protections, voting rights, and election security; and reproductive rights.

Some of these categories make perfect sense. Crime, for sure, is a quality-of-life issue, and as bad as Burlington, Brattleboro and some other communities seem to be getting with rising crime, at least there’s no risk in Vermont of being thrown onto subway tracks by a random meth-head. Air quality and a clean environment I buy too as a legit quality-of-life issue. Healthcare access, okay, and affordability certainly.

The rest of these categories, however, strike me like a “woke” policy wish list, not objective quality issues. Why, for example, is “right to organize” a quality of life plus, but “right to work” is not despite more people choosing to move to right to work states? DEI as a quality-of-life issue? I think not. Paid leave? If you’re getting it, maybe, but not if you’re being forced to pay for someone else’s benefits. Then it’s just expensive and annoying. And why is abortion rights a quality of life issue, but not, say, church participation – which data actually shows makes people happier.

On the flip side, CNBC’s top five worst states to live in on the chart (coincidentally ??? all Red states) were docked hard for things like mandating people use bathrooms based on their biological gender. I don’t know, if I were a woman I would think laws protecting me from people with penises following me into public bathrooms or locker rooms would enhance my sense of security and quality of life. And Tennessee’s — clutch your pearls! — “Nuclear Family Month.” Again, a thing that is proven to enhance happiness, longevity, and financial stability, all of which objectively improve quality of life, is scored as a negative here. Beyond odd.

This “woke” bias seems to have benefited all of the top medal winners as 2 through 5 are Deep Blue Maine, New Jersey (has anyone at CNBC been to Newark or Trenton?), Minnesota, and Connecticut – all states not coincidentally on the losing end of the net domestic migration game. People – at least the sane ones — don’t flee high quality of life situations for lower quality of life situations, so it seems to me that CNBC is to a significant degree measuring the wrong things that regular people consider adding and/or subtracting to their overall quality of life.

Anyway, Vermont’s winning score was 233 out of 290 points. CNBC doesn’t share the specific points awarded per category (at least not that I could find), but did highlight Vermont’s general strengths and weaknesses. “Strengths: Reproductive Rights, Health, Crime, Inclusiveness, and Air Quality. Weakness: Childcare.” They also spend time calling out Vermont’s ridiculous homeless situation, but it’s not listed specifically on the bullet point “weakness” list.

Childcare being singled out as a weakness – the weakness — is interesting given all the hype surrounding Aly Richards’ gubernatorial run and her touting her ten years quest to bring universal early education to Vermont, and how hers is a now a model program for the country. I guess even for woke-biased CNBC not so much. It’s dragging down our quality of life, man!

It is worth noting that the “Best States to Live” is not a prize in and of itself, but one category in the big picture survey of “Best States to Do Business,” (quality of life comprising around 11 percent of that total score) and on that grander scale Vermont falls from first to – loooong slide-whistle sound effect here — 40^th. And, funnily enough, four of the five allegedly worst places to live (Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, and Indiana) land in the top 10 states to do business. Go figure.

So, again, one has to ask if CNBC is measuring the right things in determining how normal humans define quality of life. It may be that individuals actually operate more like small businesses than woke activists or wealthy retirees when seeking a place to put down roots – looking for affordability, freedom, cheaper real estate, convenient access to goods and services, and opportunities to grow.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 25 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.