With 50 states, each with its own laws and governmental policy budgets that affect daily living most, comparisons are both inevitable and insightful.
Life is better in some ways in some states, worse in some ways in others, across a wide spectrum of categories and measures.
I first compiled a "by the numbers" column back in 2003 that serves as a basic baseline against which to compare how we've moved various needles over the past 18 years. In the midst of major changes, opportunities always abound, and part of being able to seize them and move forward more aggressively involves knowing where we stand, and whether we've been making progress.
In the segment that makes the world go 'round, as the old saying goes, Arkansas is still one of the poorest states. In 2003, we were No. 50 in median household income, No. 47 in average annual pay and No. 5 in the rate of persons below the poverty level.
Now we're 48th, 48th and fifth, respectively. The silver lining in that persistent personal financial cloud is that our cost of living index lines up with our means at second-lowest in the nation -- and we're the most affordable state when it comes to transportation costs.
Despite our relatively small state pocketbook, we're a continual overachiever in education spending, where the levels across states can vary by as much as 100% on things like teacher pay.
Arkansas per-pupil expenditures have remained static at 38th in the country, and even though teacher salaries have grown here, we haven't risen above the mid-40s ranking among states on that measure.
However, when adjusted for regional cost of living, whole-dollar teacher salary comparisons change dramatically. In No. 1 New York, for example, teacher pay falls to 17th in the nation. Arkansas climbs to a much more impressive 27th, meaning that the average buying power of teachers' salaries here actually exceeds that of much higher household-income states such as Virginia, Colorado and Hawaii, and within just a couple thousand dollars or less in annual buying power of top-teacher-paying states like California and New York.
In a Business.org ranking, which compared teacher salaries to state average income overall, Arkansas ranked the 17th best-paying state.
Behaviorally, Arkansas faced a few challenges back in 2003, as evidenced by ranking second in the U.S. in number of divorces per 1,000 population (Nevada was first), third in teenage motherhood as a percentage of total births, and 12th in births to unmarried mothers.
We're doing a little better, relative to other states, in divorces, where the state ranking is now sixth.
But we're doing worse in teenage births, where Arkansas has lamentably claimed the No. 1 ranking (at a time when the national trend percentage for teen births is falling) and in unmarried moms giving birth, where we've risen to seventh.
Arkansas teenagers also fare poorly in some other important categories, including smoking. Even after raising the age to legally smoke to 21 in 2019 (with a few exclusions until the end of 2021), our teen smoking rate remains stubbornly high among states, despite sharp decreases in the nation as a whole for teen tobacco use.
Teen smokers tend to become adult smokers, and in 2003, Arkansas ranked eighth in the nation in the subcategory of women who smoke. That was bad enough, but what's far worse is that the current ranking is now third, and the smoking rate for women here is 11 percentage points higher than the national average.
One metric that wasn't around in 2003 is e-cigarette or vaping, and while data collection is still inconsistent, early research shows high school students vape at a rate of almost three times that of adults. Arkansas ranked seventh among states in one of the latest studies of adult e-cigarette use.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., and its ill effects on state health statistics is predictable. In the America's Health Rankings list of outcomes, Arkansas is a reliable 40-something ranker across the board.
Obesity is a problem across the South, and particularly in Arkansas, which ranks third nationally. Just this week, personal finance website WalletHub named the Fattest Cities in America, and right there at No. 4 was our capital metro area (the Fayetteville metro was No. 15).
In a couple of broad health categories, Arkansas also slipped from 44th in number of active physicians per 100,000 population in 2003 to 46th, and from 42nd in life expectancy to 44th.
Turning from death to taxes, in 2003 Arkansas income tax ranked third in the nation after inflation as an increased burden on families of four at the poverty line. There's been progress since then, including multiple rate cuts, and in a recent ranking of state and local taxes' impact on low-income families, Arkansas was listed at 17th highest.
A few final numbers that warrant notice and improvement: Arkansas was ranked 45th worst for business tax climate; named fourth most dangerous state; and in voter turnout rate for the 2020 election, all that can be said is thank God for Oklahoma.
Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.