Freedom in the 50 states: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom. Look who comes in first. New Hampshire.
New Hampshire, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, and Arizona are the freest states in the country and now significantly outpace their peers. States that have always done well in our index—such as Tennessee and Indiana—also find themselves in the top 10. New York is the least free state again, as it has been in every version of the index and every year covered by this index since 2000. Hawaii has fallen enough to put itself well below California now. New Jersey and Oregon round out the bottom five. Because states’ freedom scores represent their situation at the beginning of 2023, they include changes made by legislatures that in most states were elected in November 2020. Figure 1 shows the evolution of the top and bottom states over time using the chain-linked index, so that it focuses specifically on decisions made by state governments and voters.
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