Our humans are relatively well developed
New York's in the top 7.
The American Human Development Project released its annual "Measure of America" report today. The survey ranks states and congressional districts according to a "human development index," which is based on factors such as life-expectancy, education and income.
As it happens, New York scores pretty well in the index -- it ranks #7 overall (Connecticut was #1) and the New York 14th Congressional District (Manhattan and Queens) ranked #1 among all congressional districts.
Here in the Capital Region, the NY 21st (Paul Tonko) ranked #148 nationally, and the NY 20th (Scott Murphy) #162. That's better than a little more than 60 percent of all the congressional districts.
The stat-by-stat breakdown for the two districts is after the jump.
By the way: According to the report, Asian-Americans in New Jersey live better than any other group in the nation.
image and stats: American Human Development Project
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Comments
I suppose we should be proud that we live in one of the dark greenish-brown states, but it really just seems like they took a few vague points to calculate an abstract concept they call "human development" just to point out how much better the northeast is than the rest of the US (the south in particular).
... said Jesse on Apr 28, 2010 at 11:14 PM | link
@Jesse: I wonder how using factors such as median income skew the results. Sure, places such as New York and Connecticut have high median incomes, but they also have high living expenses, too. A person could make less somewhere else and still live "better" because they're not, say, scraping to cover the mortgage.
As far as I can tell, the index also doesn't take into account factors that have been shown to be associated with happiness, such as commuting times (shorter = happier).
... said Greg on Apr 28, 2010 at 11:33 PM | link