Peace Index for the United States

The Peace Index for the United States came out while i was in California. i had a notice in my in box but with all the confusion i decided to wait until now to write about it. Being passionate about peace i couldn't let this one pass.

Every year the Institute for Economics and Peace puts out a global peace index that is a collection of data that has been compiled over the previous year.

Reflection of the sun as it is going down

This year for the first time they tried something different by focusing on each state in the nation instead of the global community. They will do a global index that will be released the end of May.

Accumulating statistics about the United States took place in five main areas, Education, Health, Politics and Demographics, Crime and Economic conditions. These five main areas were again divided up to cover things like high school graduation, educational funding, percent of females in the labor force, single parent families, voter turnout, infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, life expectancy, access to basic services, poverty, internet access, homicide, violent crimes, jailed population, availability of small arms, numbers of police in a state, and more categories too numerous to mention. The main crime delineations had the heaviest weight.

All in all a pretty concise use of a broad range of categories leading to a score that details the peacefulness of each individual state. For me an interesting outcome was that the data has shown that since 1995 the US has become more peaceful as a result of reductions in violent crime and homicide.

One of those knock out gorgeous, flat, glassy days

Now sit up and take notice, Peace, for all you political junkies out there, is politically neutral in the US. Neither Republican nor Democratic states showed an advantage when it comes to peace.

The report does say that if we as a nation were to reduce our homicides and violent crime to levels seen in Canada we could create 2.7 million extra jobs and reap $272 billion in additional economic activity, certainly not something to ignore.

Peace affects all of us in many positive ways and is directly correlated to economic opportunity, education and health. Below is a ranking of the states, Maine being the most peaceful while Louisiana is the least.  You can visit http://www.visionofhumanity.org/info-center/us-peace-index/ for more information. i don't know about you but if a peaceful environment means more money and more jobs whats not to like?

1. Maine
2. New Hampshire
3. Vermont
4. Minnesota
5. North Dakota
6. Utah
7. Massachusetts
8. Rhode Island
9. Iowa
10. Washington
11. Nebraska
12. Hawaii
13. Oregon
14. South Dakota
15. Connecticut
16. Idaho
17. Montana
18. West Virginia
19. Wisconsin
20. Kentucky
21. Pennsylvania
22. Ohio
23. Wyoming
24. Indiana
25. Virginia
26. New Jersey
27. Kansas
28. Colorado
29. New York
30. Alaska
31. Michigan
32. North Carolina
33. California
34. Mississippi
35. Illinois
36. Delaware
37. Arizona
38. New Mexico
39. Georgia
40. Missouri
41. Maryland
42. South Carolina
43. Oklahoma
44. Arkansas
45. Texas
46. Alabama
47. Florida
48. Nevada
49. Tennessee
50. Louisiana