A study of the most patriotic states in the U.S. seems to be saying that other than New Jersey, 48 states in the country are more patriotic than we are here in the Land of Lincoln.

I know it's not a competition, but still...it kind of rubs me the wrong way to see Illinois show up near the bottom of this list. I mean, c'mon, we're all pretty accustomed to seeing Illinois get some low rankings for things (Moodys, I'm looking at you), particularly in the financial areas, but now our patriotism is being questioned too?

Personal finance site WalletHub once again does the numbers crunching in trying to rank individual state levels of patriotism by looking at some of this criteria:

Expressions of American patriotism come in many forms — from setting off fireworks during Fourth of July and buying American-made goods to paying taxes and serving in the armed forces. But some states are better than others at showing their national pride.

So in order to determine where Americans bleed the most red, white and blue, WalletHub’s data team compared the states across 13 key indicators of patriotism. Our data set ranges from share of enlisted military population to share of adults who voted in the 2016 presidential election to AmeriCorps volunteers per capita.

I realize that I "buried the lede" in telling you that Illinois comes in at #49, ahead of only New Jersey, but let's go ahead and look at the top 5 most patriotic states first, followed by the bottom 5:

1) Virginia

2) Alaska

3) Wyoming

4) South Carolina

5) Colorado

*********************

46) New York

47) Rhode Island

48) Massachusetts

49) Illinois

50) New Jersey

Some of the other nuggets uncovered in the WalletHub study:

  • Red states are more patriotic, with an average ranking of 23.47, compared with 28.55 for blue states (1 = Best).
  • Alaska has the most veterans per 1,000 civilian adults, 138.9, which is 2.4 times more than in New York, the state with the fewest at 57.9.
  • Maine has the highest share of adults who voted in the 2016 presidential election, 72.68 percent, which is 1.5 times higher than in Hawaii, the state with the lowest at 47.3 percent.
  • Utah has the highest volunteer rate, 39.29 percent, which is 2.1 times higher than in Florida, the state with the lowest at 18.31 percent.
  • Utah has the most AmeriCorps volunteers per 100,000 residents, 63.31, which is 8.3 times more than in Alabama, the state with the fewest at 7.60.

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