Massachusetts Ranks 30th for Freedom In National Report

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Monday, April 01, 2013

GoLocalWorcester News Team

A new study ranks the American states according to "how their public policies affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres."

The study released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University looks at all 50 states and examines state and local government intervention across a wide range of policy categories—from tax burdens to court systems, from eminent domain laws to occupational licensing, and from homeschooling regulation to drug policy.

California and New York rank 49th and 50th respectively. Both score badly for both personal freedom and fiscal freedom.

The top ranking states are: #1 North Dakota, #2 South Dakota, and #3 Tennessee.

New England

Among the New England States, New Hampshire was the only state ranked "free." Overall, Connecticut was ranked 40th, Maine 39th, Massachusetts 30th, New Hampshire 4th, Rhode Island 46th, and Vermont 43rd.

Massachusetts

According to the report, "Massachusetts’ tax rates remain about average, and the government payroll is remarkably small at 10.4 percent of the private workforce, while government consumption plus subsidies is also extremely low at 8.8 percent of personal income. The biggest fiscal problem Massachusetts faces is debt, which is now 29 percent of income. Massachusetts has one of the most tightly controlled and exclusionary land-use regimes in the country and completely fails to check eminent domain abuse."