Scott Lincicome, a Post Opinions contributor, is the vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute.
Coverage of “freedom” at the state level typically involves a map with two colors and one dial. Economic freedom — on taxes, regulation and the like — goes in the red states, while personal freedom — on speech, policing and more — goes in the blue. The only question is which one you value more.
Reality, it turns out, is much more complicated.
Today, the Cato Institute released the 2026 edition of its Freedom in the 50 States report, and the data defies simple maps and binary analyses. The report scores every state on 97 policy variables across 10 categories of economic and personal freedom: fiscal, housing, occupational, tech/consumer, education, speech, medicine, firearms, policing and recreation. For the first time, the report also grades all 50 governors on how they have affected economic and personal liberty in their respective states. For every policy variable examined, the report asks one question: Does the state’s position enhance or restrict the freedom of American adults to peacefully act in their own self-interest and dispose of their property as they see fit?
The answers will probably surprise you.
For starters, the top-line results show that the nation does not divide neatly along the aforementioned red and blue lines. Arizona ranks first overall, followed by Montana, Nevada, Florida and Idaho. The top-scoring governors are, in descending order, Montana’s Greg Gianforte (R), Colorado’s Jared Polis (D), Florida’s Ron DeSantis (R), Texas’s Greg Abbott (R) and Iowa’s Kim Reynolds (R). Meanwhile, the lowest-performing states are South Carolina, Alaska, Massachusetts, New York and Hawaii. The bottom-scoring governors are Massachusetts’s Maura Healey (D), Rhode Island’s Dan McKee (D), California’s Gavin Newsom (D), Hawaii’s Josh Green (D) and New York’s Kathy Hochul (D).
The top freedom advocates surely deserve praise for besting their counterparts, yet they still have room for improvement. In fact, no state achieved a raw score above 75 percent — i.e., the state enacted 75 percent of the pro-freedom policies examined — for either economic or personal freedom. (The 0-10 scale is curved.) And in only one category did any state get a perfect 100 (eight states received this in firearms freedom). Low-scoring states, of course, have even further to go.
The report also reveals how varied freedom is nationwide. Instead of states choosing between “red” economic freedom and “blue” personal freedom, the two actually travel together: States with high or low scores in one type of liberty tend to have high or low scores in the other (a solid correlation of about 0.6).
Hawaii provides the most extreme example, ranking last in both economic and personal freedom overall, but 12 other states have an economic freedom score that falls within five places of the state’s personal freedom score. Meanwhile, only 14 states fall into what we usually think of as “Republican” (high economic, low personal) or “Democratic” (high personal, low economic) quadrants, with several of those just barely across the dividing line.
Beneath the surface, the connections get weaker: Of the four economic categories, only fiscal burden and occupational freedom are closely correlated, while housing relates weakly to the other three.
In other words, a state with low taxes and light occupational licensing is no more likely to let you build the house you want. Among the six personal freedom categories, there are only two decent connections — education freedom tracks with both firearm freedom (0.48) and medical freedom (0.42) — but speech, policing and recreation mostly go their own ways. And states that score worse on law enforcement overreach (civil forfeiture, qualified immunity, surveillance cameras, etc.) tend to score well on firearm, education, occupational and fiscal freedoms.
Overall, the report shows that most states have a diverse assortment of freedoms that defies easy explanation. Often, in fact, the state that’s best at one kind of liberty is mediocre or even lousy at another.
Tennessee, for example, ranks dead last on both policing and medical freedom, yet second on speech and sixth on fiscal policy. Vermont is second on housing and 48th on recreational freedom, while next-door New Hampshire is first on fiscal burden and medical freedom but 46th on speech. Nevada is first on recreational freedom but falls flat on housing, while its northern neighbor Idaho is the mirror image: first on housing and last on recreational freedom. Back east, Pennsylvania is second on tech/consumer freedom but 45th on education, while Indiana is almost the opposite at 48th and sixth, respectively. Many other states reflect similarly divergent priorities.
Common labels often mislead on specific policies, too. Texas, for example, earns its “conservative” reputation by ranking eighth on fiscal burden, yet government employees, according to Cato Institute calculations, are 11.5 percent of the state’s total nonfarm workforce, the same share as California (47th on fiscal burden). Minimum wages are supposed to be a blue-state thing, and California’s $16.90 per hour is indeed higher than Arizona’s $15.15. But measured against per capita income, the gap nearly vanishes: Arizona’s comes to 38.7 percent and California’s to 40.5, while red-state Missouri’s (40.6) and Nebraska’s (38.6) rank first and sixth in the country. Whatever you think of public payrolls or minimum-wage laws, you can’t judge them from party labels alone.
The Cato report is more than just a ranking; it’s a “cheat sheet” for policymakers and voters alike. Officials looking to enhance freedom in their states can use the report to identify current weaknesses and get ideas for improvement — ones already enacted by other states. The link between human freedom — both economic and personal — and individual well-being is strong and long-standing.
For voters, the scorecard helps them judge political leadership and consider where they might live in the future. Except for a handful of praiseworthy outliers, assessing freedom in a state requires a follow-up question: Free to do what? A graduate looking to save, a parent shopping for schools, an entrepreneur following her dreams, an empty-nester building a forever home — each has priorities that might best be served by a different address, sometimes just a few miles away from their current one.
Even the most pro-freedom officials have plenty to fix in their states, and none of it requires a revolution. Pick the freedom you care about, find the state that does it best, and tell your legislator or governor to copy the idea. And if they don’t make a change, well, there are 49 other states that might — if they haven’t already.
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