Standard of Living by State:

Here's a table of the monetary standard of living by state, as calculated by median income for a family of four divided by the Accra's cost of living index. Minnesota has the highest standard of living, at least in terms of things money can buy (i.e., not weather). At the bottom are Washington D.C., Hawaii and California. Although Democrats tend to live in higher income states, they also live in higher cost of living states, so there is little correlation between a states monetary standard of living and its voting pattern.

By the way, author Thomas Frank has gotten a lot of mileage out of his book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" in which he contends that social conservative Republicans are exploited by wealthy Republicans. The rich right get from their alliance with the religious right the tax cuts they want, but the religious right don't get bans on abortion, pornography, etc. I think there's some truth to that, but considering that Kansas comes out with the 7th highest monetary standard of living out of the 49 states measured, it would appear that the overall answer to his question is "Not Much."

	Median Income Family of 4	Cost of Living Index	Standard of Living
Minnesota	$77	100	$76
Illinois	$72	99	$73
Wisconsin	$69	95	$73
Colorado	$72	101	$71
Delaware	$73	103	$71
Missouri	$64	91	$70
Kansas	$64	92	$70
Virginia	$72	103	$69
Ohio	$66	95	$69
Indiana	$65	94	$69
Iowa	$64	94	$69
Pennsylvania	$69	101	$68
Georgia	$62	91	$68
Nebraska	$64	93	$68
Connecticut	$86	127	$68
Michigan	$69	101	$68
Utah	$62	92	$67
Washington	$69	104	$67
Massachusetts	$83	126	$66
Maryland	$82	126	$65
New Jersey	$87	134	$65
North Dakota	$57	92	$62
South Dakota	$59	95	$62
Tennessee	$55	90	$62
Texas	$55	89	$61
Alabama	$55	93	$60
North Carolina	$57	96	$59
South Carolina	$56	95	$59
Florida	$59	100	$58
Kentucky	$53	91	$58
Oregon	$62	107	$58
Vermont	$66	114	$58
Idaho	$53	94	$57
Arizona	$58	103	$57
Oklahoma	$50	89	$56
Nevada	$63	112	$56
New York	$69	124	$56
Alaska	$72	129	$56
Arkansas	$48	87	$56
Rhode Island	$71	128	$56
Wyoming	$56	102	$55
Louisiana	$51	97	$52
Mississippi	$47	91	$51
West Virginia	$46	92	$50
Montana	$49	98	$50
New Mexico	$46	101	$45
California	$68	151	$45
Hawaii	$71	162	$44
District of Columbia	$56	145	$39
Maine	$60	NA
New Hampshire	$79	NA

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My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer