Here is a headline from USA Today that made our jaws drop and then we rolled over laughing:

“CNBC released its rankings of the best and worst states to live in the United States last week.

One of the 10 criteria for the list is Life, Health & Inclusion, from which CNBC determines the best and worst states to live.”

CNBC allots points to each state, measuring categories such as per capita crime rates, environmental quality, health care, worker protections, anti-discrimination laws, voting rights, and access to childcare.

The rest of the states that landed on the top 10 worst states to live and work for 2023 were:

1. 1. 1. Texas
      2. Oklahoma
      3. Louisiana
      4. South Carolina and Alabama (tie)
      5. —
      6. Missouri
      7. Indiana
      8. Tennessee
      9. Arkansas
      10. Florida

Hold on. If a place is one of the “worst places to live,” wouldn’t we see people voting with their feet by moving OUT of those states? Over the past decade, a net one and a half million Americans moved TO Texas. The only state that has had more net in-migration than Texas is Florida. CNBC ranks Florida as the 10th least desirable state to live in.

These rankings remind us of Yogi Berra’s famous line about a restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Here’s a bewildering finding by the experts at CNBC. New Jersey – yes New Jersey – was ranked the 3rd MOST desirable state to live in. Hello. Were these people drunk when they did this rating? More than 500,000 Americans have moved OUT of New Jersey in the last decade. That’s some workers’ paradise. By the way, most of those people leaving Jersey have moved TO Florida or Texas.

Here is the CNBC ranking of the top states:

Top 10 best states to live and work

1. 1. 1. Vermont
      2. Maine
      3. New Jersey
      4. Minnesota
      5. Hawaii
      6. Oregon
      7. Washington
      8. Massachusetts and  Colorado (tie)
      9. —
      10. Connecticut

Vermont and Maine are supposedly the two best states to live in. Guess what those two states have in common? They are the whitest states in the country with the lowest share of minorities (along with Wyoming and West Virginia). Seven of the nine states ranked most desirable are whiter than the nation as a whole. So much for “inclusion.”

Who put this rating together? The Ku Klux Klan?