The Best And Worst Countries In The World

 These charts are from the U.S. News and World Report. You can go here to see how they arrived at their rankings of the countries.

The Best And Worst Countries For LGBT Community

 

Gallup Poll

The Best And Worst States For Working Mothers

 Each year, Wallethub rates the states. This is their ranking for best and worst states for working mothers. Here is their methodology:

The Best And Worst Of The 50 States

 From the YouGov Poll

Methodology: 1,211 US adults were asked to choose the better of two states from a list of the 50 US states and Washington, D.C. in a series of head to head match-ups. The poll's introductory text stated, "On each of the next few pages, you will see the names of two states in the US. On each page, we would like you to select the state that you think is the better state. You will see 7 different match-ups between states.” On each page, they saw two states with the prompt: “Which of the following states is better?” Each respondent saw seven match-ups, and no respondent saw a state twice. Data was weighted to be nationally representative of all US Adults, 18+. The survey was conducted between March 12 - 15, 2021. 

Trump And His Followers Won't Like This At All

Donald Trump and his trumpistas are bound to be seriously disappointed by the results of this poll. The Pew Research Center asked 2,002 adults who they thought was the president who did the best job in their lifetime. The survey was done between June 5th and 12th, and has a margin of error of 2.6 points. Respondents were asked to give both a first and second choice. The chart above combines those choices.

Barack Obama finished clearly in first with 44% (31% for 1st and 13% for 2nd). Bill Clinton was second with 33% and Ronald Reagan was third with 32%. Trump had 19% - a poor showing for a sitting president.

Political Scientists Rate The Presidents From Best To Worst

Brandon Rottinghaus (University of Houston) and Justin S. Vaughn (Boise State University) asked a national sample of political scientists (members of the Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association) to rate the presidents from 0 (very bad) to 100 (very good). A score of 50 would be considered average. The charts above show those ratings -- an average of responses from 170 political scientists.

Abraham Lincoln was rated the highest and George Washington second. Rounding out the top ten were Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and Lyndon Johnson.

Bringing up the rear was Donald Trump -- rated the worst president the United States has ever had.

Poll Has Voters Choose Best And Worst Presidents Since 1945

In the latest Quinnipiac University Poll, voters were asked to name the best and worst presidents since 1945 (the end of World War II). The survey was done between March 3rd and 5th of 1,122 voters, and has a margin of error of 3.5 points.

The best presidents picked by voters were Ronald Reagan (28%) and Barack Obama (24%). John Kennedy and Bill Clinton shared third place with 10% each. Trump's die-hard supporters were able to lift him into fifth place with 7%.

But his supporters couldn't keep Trump from being named the worst president since 1945. About 41% named him the worst -- 20 points more than the 21% who said the worst was Obama.

Two things are clear from the survey -- Trump is the least respected of any president, and the country still views Obama in a very partisan way (putting him in second place on both the best and worst lists).

United States Slips To Eighth In The "Best Country List"

The U.S. News & World Report has issued it's Best Country List for 2018. Switzerland remained in first place, followed by Canada and Germany. The United States dropped to eighth (from seventh in last year's list).

Countries are judged in each of nine categories, and then ranked in each category. The lower the score on the chart above (which shows the 25 best countries), the better.

Here's how they describe their methodology:

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall ranking score and the country attributes factored into each are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights do not add up to precisely 100.00 due to rounding.

Adventure (3.24 percent): friendly, fun, pleasant climate, scenic, sexy

Citizenship (16.95 percent): cares about human rights, cares about the environment, gender equality, progressive, religious freedom, respects property rights, trustworthy, well-distributed political power

Cultural Influence (12.93 percent): culturally significant in terms of entertainment, fashionable, happy, has an influential culture, modern, prestigious, trendy

Entrepreneurship (17.42 percent): connected to the rest of the world, educated population, entrepreneurial, innovative, provides easy access to capital, skilled labor force, technological expertise, transparent business 
practices, well-developed infrastructure, well-developed legal framework

Heritage (3.17 percent): culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions

Movers (10.00 percent): different, distinctive, dynamic, unique

Open for Business (11.99 percent): bureaucratic, cheap manufacturing costs, corrupt, favorable tax environment, transparent government practices

Power (7.42 percent): a leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military

Quality of Life (16.89 percent): a good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system

To arrive at a country's rank, we first calculated its standardized scores for each of the 65 country attributes. Each country received nine subranking scores by averaging its scores for the country attributes grouped into that subranking. A country's overall score reflects the weighted sum of its subranking scores. The subranking and overall scores were rescaled so that the top country in each category received a value of 100, and others were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Scores were ranked in descending order.

The States With The Worst And Best Health Care

The map above is from the new health care report released by the Commonwealth Fund. That report ranked all of the states according to the overall quality of health care in the state. To arrive at that ranking, the Commonwealth Fund used five criteria -- access and affordability, prevention and treatment, avoidable hospital use and cost, healthy lives, and equity. The darkest colored states on the map have the worst overall health care, and the lightest colored states have the best overall health care.

There are 12 states ranked in the bottom quartile -- the states with the poorest health care. Those states are:
51. Mississippi
50. Arkansas
49. Oklahoma
48. Louisiana
46. Nevada
46. Alabama
45. Georgia
44. Texas
43. Indiana
42. Kentucky
41. Florida
40. Tennessee

And there are 13 states in the top quartile -- the states with the best health care. Those states are:
1. Minnesota
2. Massachusetts
2. New Hampshire
2. Vermont
5. Hawaii
6. Connecticut
7. Maine
7. Wisconsin
9. Rhode Island
10. Delaware
10. Iowa
12. Colorado
12. South Dakota

Do you see the rather obvious pattern there. It seems that the states with the worst health care are the red states -- the states where the Republicans have the most power. These states consider health care to be a product, that should only be available to those who can pay for it. They are also, with the exception of Kentucky and Arkansas, the states that have refused to expand Medicaid to cover their poorest citizens with health insurance.

And the states on the best health care list are, with the exception of South Dakota, all blue states -- states where the Democrats have the most control. These states generally view health care as a basic right that should be afforded to all their citizens. They are also generally the states that have expanded Medicaid.

If you think I'm blaming elected Republican officials for the poor health care in the states they control, then you are right. I believe their hard-hearted and uncaring lack of leadership in the area of health care has set the tone for health care in those states. Their attitude that the best health care should be reserved for the rich means that not only poor, but also ordinary citizens, will suffer. Leadership matters -- and they don't demonstrate any.

Is Your State The Best (Or Worst) Possible Place To Live ?

The information used to make these charts comes from a recent Gallup Poll. It was taken between June and December of 2013 of a random national sample of 600 nationwide adults, and has a margin of error of 5 points.

This is a pretty meaningless poll. I just thought it was fun, if for no other reason than it tends to justify the myth that Texans love to brag about their state. When poll respondents were asked if their state was the best possible state to live in, Texans had the highest percentage saying yes (28%), closely followed by Alaskans (27%). I'm just surprised that the percentage of Texans saying that was not higher. In spite of the many faults our state has, we Texans do love to brag about it.

The surprise for me about this survey is how many people in Illinois said their state was the worst possible state to live in. About 25% (or one out of every four) said that -- a percentage significantly more than any other state (and exceeding the margin of error over the second place states -- Rhode Island and Connecticut at 17% each).

Toyota Still Perceived As Best Car

Consumer Reports has released its latest Car Brand Perception Survey (done about a month ago) and it contained a mild surprise.   Even though the company was plagued by acceleration problems and received a lot of bad publicity in the last year because of that (and some other problems), Toyota once again finished in first place.   It is perceived by consumers as the best overall car brand.

The 1,721 car owners participating in the survey rated car brands in the following categories (and the category ratings were added together to get an aggregate score):
Safety
Quality
Value
Performance
Design/Style
Technology/Innovation
Environmentally friendly/Green

It looks like Toyota can thank its Prius Hybrid for the company staying in first place.   Toyota was far ahead of all other brands in the Environmentally friendly/Green category, scoring a 47 in that category.   Ford was in second place with a score of only 18.

Ford was the big winner in the survey, having vaulted itself into second place -- only three points behind Toyota.   Honda finished in third place -- twenty-three points behind Ford.   Here are the top ten and bottom ten brands in the Consumer Reports survey:

TOP TEN
Toyota..........147
Ford..........144
Honda..........121
Chevrolet..........102
BMW..........93
Mercedes-Benz..........90
Volvo..........84
Lexus..........69
Cadillac..........66
Subaru..........50

BOTTOM TEN
Isuzu..........2
Suzuki..........5
Mitsubishi..........8
Land Rover..........9
Saab..........10
Jaguar..........13
Mercury..........14
Jeep..........16
Mini..........19
Volkswagen..........19

It looks like a car being environmentally friendly is not that great a selling point right now though.   When the survey participants were asked what brand they are considering buying when they replace their current car, two American brands finished in the top two places.   Here are those percentages:
Ford..........18%
Chevrolet..........13%
Toyota..........12%
Honda..........10%

It looks like the American brands are beginning to make a comeback.

How Does Your Airline Rate ?

In this day and age, air travel has become much more of a hassle than a pleasure (thanks to both the airlines and the government). While you're being treated like you're traveling by cattle truck, have you ever wondered if another airline might do a better job than the one you're using? I know I have.

Well, researchers at Purdue University (Indiana) and Wichita State University (Kansas) have answered that question for all of us. They used government statistics in four different categories (on-time performance, mishandled baggage, denied boardings due to overbooking, consumer complaints) to rate United States airlines according to the service they deliver. Here are the rankings (with best at top and worst at bottom):

1. Hawaiian (pictured)

2. AirTran

3. JetBlue

4. Northwest

5. Southwest

6. Continental

7. Frontier

8. US Airways

9. American

10. ExpressJet

11. Alaska

12. Mesa

13. United

14. SkyWest

15. Delta

16. Comair

17. Atlantic Southeast

18. American Eagle