(Jon Margolis writes political columns for VTDigger.)
[T]he results are in, and of all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) which do you suppose is “the best state to be born in,” the one that gives its residents “the best shot at success”?
The answer is … (pause for a drum roll here) … from way up in the northeastern corner of the nation, home of not quite one-fifth of 1 percent of the American people, the much-honored but often-forgotten and frequently ridiculed state of … (more drum roll) … Vermont.
They’ve got to be kidding.
Vermont? Where population may be declining? Where a house, a gallon of gas and a kilowatt of electricity cost more than in most states? Where high taxes are a constant cause of caterwauling?
Yup, that Vermont, and no, they are not kidding.
The 2017 Opportunity Index, a project of Opportunity Nation and Measure of America, gave Vermont the highest score in the 2017 version of its annual study. Vermont scored 63.3 (out of 100), well above the nationwide average of 52.4, even comfortably ahead of second-place Minnesota’s score of 61.8.
The highest score among Vermont’s neighbors was 60.5 for Massachusetts. New Hampshire got a score of 59.7 and New York 56.4. New Mexico’s score – 40.9 – was the lowest.
That description of Vermont as “the best state to be born in” comes not from the Opportunity Index report itself but from the article about it in its “media partner,” the online magazine OZY. But the results of the index support the wording. They show Vermont scoring well above the national average in all of the study’s chosen categories: economy, education, community and health.
Not only did Vermont get the highest score for this year, it’s had the highest score for all seven years of this study’s existence, raising an interesting question: If Vermont offers more opportunity than any other state, why are not millions – or at least many thousands – moving in, instead of moving out, which slightly more people seem to be doing?
Well, yes, it’s cold. And much of Vermont lacks the glitz (big shopping malls, entertainment venues, cell phone service) in such demand these days. Still, people are not stupid, or at least not so stupid that they don’t know what’s good for them. They do respond to incentives. They tend to follow … ahh … opportunity.
They’re not following it to Vermont.
The Opportunity Index suggests that more of them should. It shows that Vermonters earn more money, are healthier and safer, have better schools and stronger communities than most other Americans.
The better schools and health part will come as no surprise. Earlier studies have left little doubt that Vermont is among the safest, healthiest states in the country with a good public school system, a low crime rate, and a high percentage of college graduates.
But its economy is above average, too?
Yes, says the Opportunity Index. Vermont’s economy score is 59.6, 2.5 points higher than the national average. The score is based on seven “data points,” most of them criteria commonly used to assess an economy, such as income, income inequality, unemployment and poverty rates, the cost of housing. On all but the housing cost benchmark, Vermont scores well.
What the index ignored was the total cost of living, the rate of job creation, and taxes, also common standards in economic analysis. It isn’t that Vermont compares so poorly in these measurements. But it’s a bit more expensive to live here than in most other states. Job creation is steady, but slow. Some (though not all) Vermonters pay a higher share of their incomes in taxes than they would if they lived somewhere else. Including these criteria might have lowered the state’s score.
None of this means that the Opportunity Index is invalid or useless. It does provide evidence for the theory that studies tend to conclude with the conclusions the studiers hoped to find before they collected their first sliver of data. If nothing else, the index provides a handy counter-balance to all those business-oriented studies which are just as selective in choosing which information to use and which paint life in Vermont as slightly less disagreeable than walking over a bed of hot coals.
Those studies stress costs. The Opportunity Index does not ignore costs (see its affordable housing indicator) but pays more attention to what Vermonters get for their money, such as:
• A lot more physicians per person (112.4 per 100,000 people) than the country as a whole (75.5 per 100,000);
• Many fewer young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school (7.4 percent compared with 12.3 percent nationally);
• Much more proximity to a bank and a grocery store than most Americans.
All this enhances social opportunity but is not directly related to economic opportunity. The Opportunity Index deals with economics, but its focus is sociology.
No surprise, Opportunity Nation was created by the Center for Effective Philanthropy in association with Measure of America, which is in turn is a part of the Social Science Research Council. The council was part of the Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which sought to apply scientific expertise to public policy.
Perhaps anticipating criticism of Vermont’s high score, the article in OZY noted that Vermont “doesn’t have the loudest-roaring economy,” but said the state “soars on community metrics, including its low crime rate (and) among the best health scores in the country.”
Stacy Heit, the communications director for Opportunity Nation, acknowledged that the Opportunity Index does not measure everything.
“Our 20 indicators do not include taxes, transportation and other factors that may affect where, why and how people move,” she wrote in an email. “Transportation is a factor that we have discussed adding to the Index in the future. Taxes might be worth looking into as well.”
