NEW ORLEANS – A new “State of the States” report from the national State of the Nation Project, led by researchers at Tulane University, ranked Louisiana last overall among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, although the state ranked first nationally in Civil Liberties and improved over time on nine of the 30 measures examined.
The report analyzed more than three decades of data across all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide a long-term progress report for each state.
Drawing on more than 4,000 indicators, researchers ranked states across 31 measures covering life satisfaction, trust in 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. “This is the first report of its kind to examine not only economic outcomes but social, civic and personal outcomes by state.”
The bipartisan group behind the report includes researchers and policy experts from seven of the nation’s leading think tanks across the political spectrum as well as advisors to the past five U.S. presidents, Democrats and Republicans. The project builds on the original State of the Nation report released in 2025, which examined how the United States compares with other countries on similar measures. This new report shifts the focus inward, analyzing how those trends are playing out across states.
The report found significant regional divides. States in the western Midwest and New England generally ranked highest overall in the most recent year across the measures examined, while Southern states ranked near the bottom. Minnesota had the strongest average ranking across all measures, while Louisiana ranked last.
Louisiana’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Researchers found Louisiana ranked first nationally in Civil Liberties and performed comparatively better in Trust (23rd) and Mental Health (29th). Louisiana ranked near the bottom in Education (49th), Environment (49th), Inequality (49th), Violence (50th) and Work and Labor Force (51st). Researchers also found Louisiana improved over time on nine of the report’s 30 measures.
Within the workforce category, Louisiana ranked last nationally in both employment-to-population ratio and labor force participation rate, although both measures improved faster than the national average over time. The report also ranked Louisiana 47th in long-term unemployment and last in hourly earnings growth.
The findings come days after Louisiana lawmakers approved a series of workforce initiatives during the 2026 legislative session, including a restructuring of the state’s workforce development system, expanded worker training programs and new investments aimed at connecting residents with jobs tied to more than $100 billion in announced economic development projects. Supporters of the legislation argue the changes could help address longstanding workforce participation challenges highlighted in the Tulane analysis.
How Louisiana Fits into National Trends
Researchers identified eight measures where no state is moving in a positive direction: life satisfaction, adult depression, youth depression, fatal overdoses, trust in the federal government, income inequality, long-term unemployment rate and hourly earnings growth.
At the same time, every state improved on two measures: child mortality and total real state income.
According to the report, Southern states ranked in the middle on personal well-being but comparatively low on trust in institutions. Researchers also found widening gaps between states in income levels, hourly earnings and several measures of well-being, including trust, depression, suicide and overdose rates.
“While all states are struggling with mental health, some states are getting hit harder than others,” said Anna Lembke, a leading psychiatrist at Stanford University and co-author of the report.
Researchers also found widespread declines in self-reported well-being. Across six measures that examined how people feel about their lives, relationships and mental health, states showed improvement in only 12 of 225 possible instances.
The report also found that states with higher personal incomes per capita did not necessarily perform better on measures of personal well-being such as life satisfaction and depression.
“It’s not easy to capture how states are doing. This endeavor brought together a healthy mix of expertise and perspective, yet wound up with a remarkable degree of consensus as to what measures are most fundamental,” said Frederick Hess, a political scientist and education expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“At the state level, we encourage you to ask, where is my state excelling and failing?” the authors wrote. “What is different about my state that might explain such successes and failures? … This is how we see the path from data to real solutions.”
The report does not prescribe specific policy solutions. Instead, the authors say their goal is to establish a shared set of facts at a time when Americans increasingly disagree not only about politics, but about the condition of the country itself. “We have to first ask, how are we doing? Then, we can move on to, how do we get better?” the authors wrote.
About Tulane Funded State of the States
The State of the States report was funded by Tulane University and the university’s Murphy Institute. Drawing on more than three decades of data and more than 4,000 indicators, the project is intended to help policymakers, civic leaders and residents better understand long-term social, economic and civic trends within their states.
