SC among the worst states in the US, new national report says. Here’s where it ranks & why
South Carolina has been improving in several areas, such as its economy, productivity and traffic fatalities, but there is still much to work on.
In a newly released report, each state was ranked from best to worst based on over 30 different measures and 4,000 indicators. The State of the States report, created and funded by Tulane University and also worked on by other distinguished university professors, combed through 30 years of data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide a long-term progress card for each state.
It was a bipartisan group behind the report to make sure it would be exempt from political bias. This project also builds on the State of the Nation report, released in 2025, which examined how the United States compares with other countries on similar measures.
The measures covered everything from life satisfaction, trust in their neighbors and institutions, civil liberties, education, environment, children and families, economy, workforce, physical and mental health, inequality and more.
“At a time of such polarization, misinformation, and pessimism, it’s important to get a clear sense of how we’re really doing on what matters most. It turns out that states — red and blue — mostly share the same struggles,” said Douglas Harris, director of the State of the Nation Project and an economics professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane.
If this were an academic report card, SC would’ve failed. To be fair, the report was fairly grim for much of the unhappy country. The authors concluded that no state was improving on an alarming number of measures, a stronger economy doesn’t improve personal well-being and only a handful of states are improving on any measure of self-reported well-being.
Here’s where SC ranked among the states and the key findings from the report:
How’s SC doing?
Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, SC ranked 42nd in the country overall. The state’s average rank was 33.6.
SC ranked higher, on average, in these areas:
- Civil Liberties (Freedom of the Press): Ranked 1st
- Mental Health: Ranked 18th
- Trust: Ranked 26th
- Environment: Ranked 26th
These were the areas that SC ranked the worst on:
- Physical Health: Ranked 42nd
- Violence: Ranked 42nd
- Children and Families: Ranked 43rd
- Citizenship and Democracy: Ranked 44th
SC is only improving over time on eight of the 31 measures. These measures include:
- Child mortality: Current state rank is 46th
- Voter participation: Current state rank is 43rd
- Economic output: Current state rank is 24th
- Productivity: Current state rank is 37th
- Average years of education: Current state rank is 36th
- Air quality: Current State rank is 39th
- Life expectancy: Current state rank is 42nd
- Murder rate: Current state rank is 44th
The Palmetto State is getting worse in the following measures: Low birthweight, youth depression, net greenhouse gas emissions, satisfaction with current life, fatal overdoses, suicide rate, trust in other people, shootings, employment-to-population ratio, labor force participation rate, long-term unemployment rate.
To see the full report for SC, click here.
Best and worst states
Geographically, states in the Midwest and New England generally ranked highest overall in the most recent year across the measures examined, while Southern states ranked near the bottom.
Here are the top 5 states:
- Minnesota: average rank is 13.9
- New Hampshire: average rank is 14.6
- Iowa: average rank is 15.9
- Vermont: average rank is 16.1
- Massachusetts: average rank is 16.2
These were the report’s bottom 5 states:
- Louisiana: average rank is 40.7
- New Mexico: average rank is 39.5
- West Virginia: average rank is 38.7
- Nevada: average rank is 38.0
- Mississippi: average rank is 37.8