The Rise and Fall of the 50 States

Every state starts level. Each one rises or sinks to its blended score. The height shows how far apart the states are, not just who is ahead.

All 50 states start at one height. Each block then moves to its blended score. Taller is healthier. Green is a healthier rank. Red is a less healthy one. The number is the blended rank, 1 to 50. Sources: BLS BED 2024, FBI CDE 2024, NAEP 2024.

A rank tells you the order. It does not tell you the distance. Utah is 2nd and New Hampshire is 3rd. Maryland is 24th and Vermont is 25th. Each pair is one rank apart. The gaps are not the same.

The movie shows the gaps. The blended score is the average of three ranks: jobs, safety, and schools. A lower score is healthier. New Jersey has the best score, 7.2. New Mexico has the worst, 43.7. A block's height is its distance above New Mexico. So taller is healthier, and the space between two blocks is the real gap between them.

Every block starts halfway between those two scores. From there, 27 states rise and 23 sink.

The middle is crowded

Top to bottom, the scores span 36.5 points. If the states were evenly spaced, each rank would be 0.7 points apart. They are not evenly spaced.

The middle is packed. Ranks 11 through 40 cover 16.8 points, about 0.6 per rank. Seven states, from Pennsylvania at 14th to Idaho at 20th, sit within 2.1 points of each other. Six more, from South Carolina at 22nd to Ohio at 27th, sit within 1.1 points.

The ends spread out. The top 10 cover 9.8 points. The bottom 10 cover 9.1. That is about 1 point per rank at each end. The top 10 average 13.0. The bottom 10 average 39.1. The two groups are 26.1 points apart.

Where the cliffs are

These are the biggest drops between neighbors:

Utah (2nd) to New Hampshire (3rd): 2.8 points. That one step is bigger than the whole seven-state run from 14th to 20th.
Washington (44th) to Arizona (45th): 2.5 points.
Wisconsin (8th) to North Dakota (9th): 1.9 points.
Connecticut (5th) to Kentucky and Wyoming (tied 6th): 1.8 points.

New Jersey and Utah stand apart at the top. New Jersey is 4.25 points ahead of New Hampshire in 3rd. At the bottom, Oregon, Nevada, Oklahoma, and New Mexico sit within 1.75 points of each other. On the map they barely leave the floor.

Same height, different build

Two ties show that the same height can be built in very different ways.

Kentucky and Wyoming tie at 6th. Kentucky sits between 11th and 20th on all three. Wyoming is 28th on jobs, but 8th on safety and 5th on schools.

Louisiana and Michigan tie at 36th. Louisiana is 21st on jobs and 46th on safety. Michigan sits between 28th and 38th on all three.

One great pillar does not carry a state. South Carolina is 1st on jobs and lands 22nd. Massachusetts is 1st on schools and lands 18th, because it is 49th on jobs. Colorado is 7th on schools and lands 41st. New Hampshire is only 27th on jobs, but 2nd on safety and 3rd on schools put it 3rd.

Pillar ranks are the state card ranks, 1 to 50. 1 is healthiest. The blended rank is colored on the 1–50 map ramp. Green is healthy. Red is not. The blend uses the unrounded safety and schools means, so it can differ slightly from an average of the card ranks.
State	Jobs	Safety	Schools	Blended rank
New Hampshire	27	2	3	3
Kentucky	11	11	20	6
Wyoming	28	8	5	6
Massachusetts	49	14	1	18
South Carolina	1	38	36	22
Louisiana	21	46	34	36
Michigan	34	28	38	36
Colorado	47	47	7	41

What the shape says

The ends are states that agree with themselves. Seven of the top 10 are in the top half on all three pillars. Seven of the bottom 10 are in the bottom half on all three. Strong on everything, or weak on everything, is what it takes to get far from the middle.

Most states mix. Of the 30 states ranked 11th to 40th, 23 have at least one pillar in the top half and at least one in the bottom half. A strong pillar and a weak one average out toward the center. That is why the middle bunches up and the ends fan out.

It also means a small move in the middle can jump a state several ranks. A move at the ends has to be large to show up at all.

Close

Rank is the order. Height is the distance. Climbing from 20th to 14th takes 2.1 points. Climbing from 3rd to 2nd takes 2.8.

See where your state sits: https://www.henrycarstens.com/states

--h

Method. Blended score = (jobs rank + the mean of the violent and property crime ranks + the mean of the four NAEP 2024 grade ranks) / 3, with the two means left unrounded. The blended rank is the integer rank of that score. Ties share a rank. The movie's height is proportional to 43.7 minus the score, so New Mexico is flat and every gap in height is a gap in score. Blocks start at the midpoint score, 25.4. Gaps are between neighbors in score order. "Top half" on a pillar means a card rank of 25 or better. Crime rates are adjusted for FBI reporting coverage (reported offenses over the population the reporting agencies cover); updated 2026-10-09. Sources: BLS BED 2024 establishment births minus deaths, FBI CDE 2024, NAEP 2024. This page does not change the ranks, the map, or the pillar data.