Want To Improve Your Lot In Life? Move To This State

Excerpt:

The ability to achieve great things, regardless of where you start, is a key part of the American Dream. America has its share of rags-to-riches stories but making it to the very top is not the only measure of success. What folks really want is to know that if they work hard and play by the rules, they will be able to provide a good life for themselves and their families. A new report from the Archbridge Institute ranks the states based on how well they foster social mobility, or the opportunity for people to better themselves and those around them. Utah is ranked first, while Louisiana is last.

Any parent will tell you they want their children to have more opportunities than they did. But how do we create those opportunities? Parents do their part by instilling virtues in their children, things like prudence, perseverance, kindness, courage, and honesty. People who hone these virtues are enjoyable to be around and can build relationships that lead to opportunities.

A person’s upbringing is not the only thing that matters, though. There are external factors at play, things outside one’s immediate control that can influence the types of opportunities available. A place with a strong economy, high-quality schools, safe neighborhoods, respect for the rule of law, and neighbors who support one another will foster more social mobility than a place without these features.

The new Archbridge social mobility report by Justin Callais, Vincent Geloso, and Gonzalo Schwarz measures a variety of factors across four pillars—entrepreneurship and growth; institutions and rule of law; education and skills development; and social capital—for each of the fifty states. Some of the measures used to determine a state’s rank are occupational licensing restrictions, taxes, firm growth, perceptions of government corruption, university quality, share of households with single parents, and the percentage of people who spent time with neighbors in the last month. The authors then compare these measures across states to determine which ones create the conditions most conducive to social mobility.

Read the full article at Forbes.

Read Social Mobility in the 50 States here.