Republican-led red states on average use taxpayers’ money more effectively to provide superior government services than Democrat-led blue states, according to a new study.
WalletHub used 29 metrics to compare the quality and efficiency of state government services across five categories — health, safety, education, the economy, and infrastructure and pollution — taking into account the different rates at which residents are taxed in each state.
According to WalletHub’s findings, red states yield a better return on investment for taxpayers, ranking on average significantly higher than their blue state counterparts. States were designated red or blue based on how they voted in the 2020 presidential election.
“Different states have dramatically different tax burdens,” the report states. “This begs the question of whether people in high-tax states receive superior government services. Likewise, are low-tax states more efficient or do they receive low-quality services? In short, where do taxpayers get the most and least bang for their buck? WalletHub aimed to answer that question by contrasting state and local tax collections with the quality of the services residents receive in each of the 50 states.”
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Specifically, WalletHub analyzed each state across the five key government-service categories of health, safety, education, the economy, and infrastructure and pollution, breaking each category down into 29 relevant metrics. These metrics, which were weighted differently based on importance, ranged from the violent crime rate and median household income to the quality of the school system, public hospitals, and roads and bridges. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale.
WalletHub then determined each state’s weighted average across all 29 metrics to calculate its overall “government services score.” The study then constructed a “taxpayer return on investment” ranking by comparing each…
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