Liberal Paradise Calif. Finishes Dead Last in Most Important Survey in the Country
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The Democrat-dominated state of California is often held up by the left as some sort of “liberal paradise” and veritable Utopia of social justice and progressive policies.
However, according to the annual survey by U.S. News and World Report which ranks all 50 U.S. states on a host of categories, the state didn’t quite live up to liberal billing. In fact, it failed miserably in at least one key component of the rankings, namely the “quality of life” for residents of the state.
Overall, California came came in 32nd among all states, but ranked dead last when it came to quality of life.
The quality of life category, which combines a state’s score on both their natural environment and social environment, looks at things such as the quality of air, drinking water and level of toxic chemical pollution, as well as how engaged and supported people are in their communities and their level of political involvement.
California drew a ranking of 44 for natural environment and 47 for social environment, far from what leftists would have you believe.
By way of comparison, the Republican-red and heavily conservative state of North Dakota ranked first in the quality of life category, with a score of second and third for natural and social environment, respectively.
Other categories that went into the overall ranking included, in descending order of importance, health care, education, economy, opportunity, infrastructure, crime and corrections and fiscal stability.
It is worth noting that California ranked in the top half of all states in only the categories of economy and health care, 4 and 11 respectively.
Two of the categories related to the economy — opportunity, which measures poverty, housing affordability and employment equality for women and minorities — and fiscal stability — which tracks the state’s budget, credit rating, liquidity and pension fund liability — delivered rather poor results for California.
California ranked 46 for opportunity and 43 for fiscal stability, which revealed that their highly-touted economic footing is not nearly as solid as advertised, as their precariously perched economy could come crashing down at even the slightest downturn.
According to Fox News, some of the factors that contributed to those low rankings are the fact that California suffers from a dearth of affordable housing and some of the highest rent prices in the nation, with more than a third of renters in the Los Angeles area being considered “severely rent burdened” in that at least half of their income goes toward housing.
On top of that, homelessness has reportedly surged in that area and others across the state in recent years, with at least 55,000 people living on the streets in Los Angeles County alone.
As previously noted, the largely conservative state of North Dakota received top billing when it came to quality of life, but it was another generally conservative state with a plethora of residents who hold traditional American values that earned the top overall ranking in the survey.
That state would be Iowa, which ranked in the top 10 in five of the eight categories, and whose lowest ranking was 21 in fiscal stability.
It would be interesting to see how liberals will attempt to spin these dismal survey results, but odds are they will simply ignore them and continue to plod along toward their ephemeral goal of a progressive Utopia that will never actually exist.
Please share this story on social media so everyone can see how the liberal bastion of California ranks against more conservative states.
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