May 24, 2024
As Franklin would have it, nothing in this life is certain but death and taxes. And when it comes to US states it is generally thought there's a trade-off between the two. Live in a high tax, high quality of life state or cut down on your tax bill and your life expectancy. But is it true? I did some data digging to find out. Let's start with the answer because it makes for a pretty graph:
I would say that you have to squint quite a bit to see a correlation. Mixing in politics does make for some interesting observations:
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It seems to be generally true that blue states have a higher quality of life and higher taxes vs the lower quality of life and lower taxes for red states
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But the states with the highest taxes, while all being blue, are not the top states when it comes to human development
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And the states with the lowest human development scores, while all being red, are not the states with the lowest taxes
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In particular, New Hampshire seems to achieve a human development outcome comparable to Hawaii but with a lot lower tax burden (also worse weather of course)
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And Iowa has about the same tax burden as Mississippi, but has much better human development outcome (whether the climate is better is a judgement call I guess)
Tools and sources
You can find the combined data and the processing of the data in this google sheet.
If you make a copy and install the Neptyne Python Add-On you can see all the code processing. Data comes from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index_score
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494