Analysis: Hawai’i Ranks Low in Taxpayer Return on Investment
Financial website WalletHub recently released a study analyzing the United States tax landscape through its “Best & Worst Taxpayer Return on Investment in 2016” analysis, ranking Hawai’i among the worst.
WalletHub used 20 metrics to compare the quality and efficiency of state government services across five categories, including education, health, safety, economy, and infrastructure and pollution.
On a scale of one as the best and 25 as average, Hawai’i ranked 48th in overall ROI.
The state also had low marks when it came to total taxes per capita, population age 18+ (45th), Infrastructure & Pollution (41), Education (39), and Economy (33).
Hawai’i ranked seventh in Health and 21st in Safety.
In addition, the state came in at a three-way tie for the 48th spot in worst water quality. Hawai’i was tied with Oklahoma and New York. The state also tied with New York for the 47th ranking when it came to worst roads and bridges.
After compiling the 20 metrics, Wallethub provided each metric with a value between 0 and 100, where 100 corresponded with the best state for governmental services and 0 with the worst.
An overall score was then calculated for each state using the average across all metrics and they were each ranked accordingly.
Each of the state’s Average “Government Service” Scores were also compared to its “Total Taxes per Capita” ranking to provide a clear ROI hierarchy for taxpayers nation-wide.
Alaska and North Dakota followed Hawai’i closing up as the worst overall ROI.
New Hampshire, South Dakota, Colorado, Virginia, and Florida rounded out the states with the best ROI.