Some states are more sinful than others, according to a recent analysis by WalletHub that measured 47 indicators of vice correlating to the seven deadly sins. Nevada, thanks in part to Las Vegas, tops the list. Sin City is an apt name after all.
“Red states and blue states may like to point to one another as the source of all that is wrong with the U.S., but the truth is that each of the 50 states has its own virtues and vices,” the website says. The seven most sinful states, by WalletHub’s measure, are Nevada, Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Nevada scores No. 1 on greed, also scoring high on jealousy and lust (hello, Las Vegas). Texas supposedly leads in lust, and Florida scores high in jealousy and vanity.
This last point is unsurprising to any aficionado of “Florida man” headlines. Just take this one as an example: “Meth smoking Florida man attacks mattress in jealous rage.” California scores high in lust and vanity, for obvious reasons.
The six least sinful states are Vermont, Wyoming, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, and South Dakota. Maybe those residents are too busy shoveling their driveways and simply don’t have time to break God’s commandments.
WalletHub’s analysis measured each state’s deadly sin quotient through various metrics: anger and hate (violent crimes per capita, bullying rate), jealousy (thefts per capita, fraud), excess (most excessive drinking, share of obese adults), greed (share of population with gambling disorders, casinos per capita), lust (highest average time spent on pornographic websites, persons arrested for prostitution, and commercialized vice per capita), vanity (most beauty salons per capita, Google search interest index for “Top 5 Plastic Surgeries”), and laziness (highest percentage of adults not exercising, average daily time spent watching TV).
As the imprecision of these measures suggests, it’s something of a joke to pit the states against each other. Nevertheless, these defects have real-life consequences. “Harmful behavior on the individual level can add up to staggering economic costs on a national scale,” the site concludes. From the $5 billion cost of gambling to the $300 billion-plus cost of smoking, we could all benefit from a little less vice. It looks like the other 49 states could take a cue from Vermont, which ranks 38 in excesses and vices but still has the most breweries per capita in the United States. As Aristotle said, virtue is about finding the mean.
