It’s no surprise that the home state to Sin City — Nevada — would be ranked No. 1 as the most sinful state in the U.S. (followed by California and Texas to make the top three), but it may come as a surprise to some that New Jersey and New York were ranked in the top 20 of that list.
Finance website WalletHub put together a list of the “Most Sinful States in America” in 2022 and named New Jersey and New York No. 12 and No. 13, respectively, on that list.
Every state “has its own virtues and vices,” according to the WalletHub experts who compiled the list as a result of a study.
"It’s not enough just to know where certain problems lie,” say the experts, “the important next step is figuring out how to fix them and improve each state’s quality of life.”
The sinfulness of the 50 states was compared on seven key dimensions: Anger & Hatred, Jealousy, Excesses & Vices, Greed, Lust, Vanity and Laziness. Those same dimensions were then examined using 47 relevant metrics graded on a 100-point scale (100 being the highest level of sinfulness) and range from violent crime per capita, to excessive drinking, to search interests for online adult entertainment.
Across the board it turns out sins are very expensive no matter where the states rank on the list. According to findings by Georgia State University, pathological and problem gambling costs the U.S. $5 billion annually; on that same account, the lifetime costs of pathological and problem gambling in the U.S. are estimated at $53.8 billion.
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Those numbers are minor in comparison to the costs of cigarette smoking, which totals more than $300 billion annually, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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New York ranked No. 1 in Vanity, and New Jersey wasn't far behind at No. 4. The main relevant metrics used to derive this result were beauty salons per capita and search interest index for “top 5 plastic surgeries.” Both states also were near the top in Lust, with New York at No. 5 and New Jersey at No. 8.
Below are New Jersey and New York broken down across the so-called seven deadly sins:
New Jersey
- 45th in Anger and Hatred
- 31st in Jealousy
- 47th in Excesses and Vices
- 6th in Greed
- 8th in Lust
- 4th in Vanity
- 31st in Laziness
New York
- 18th in Anger and Hatred
- 28th in Jealousy
- 48th in Excesses and Vices
- 50th in Greed
- 5th in Lust
- 1st in Vanity
- 17th in Laziness
