People follow jobs, and jobs follow freedom. That’s one of the main results from the third and much improved edition of the Mercatus Center’s “Freedom in the Fifty States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom.”

These policies include things such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, an individual health insurance mandate, mandated family leave and more. According to their methodology — which is available for everyone to see — in 2011, the freest states were North Dakota and South Dakota, while New York, New Jersey and California ranked the least free.