Kansas a fairly independent state, according to WalletHub survey

With Independence Day right around the corner, the personal-finance website WalletHub has released its study of 2019’s Most Independent States.

“Kansas is pretty independent,” said analyst Jill Gonzalez. “It ranked in the top 10, right at number 10 overall. That’s across things like government dependency, where it actually ranked number one, even things like job market, international trade dependency, dependency from our vices, across the board, Kansas did pretty well.”

Kansans are able to get through without federal intervention to a great degree.

“It has a low share of households receiving public assistance or SNAP, food stamps, a very low share of occupied subsidized housing units,” said Gonzalez. “A pretty low share of federal, state and local government employees, as well. If anything were to really rock the boat federally, Kansas would be pretty protected from that.”

One weak point for the state was related to personal vices.

“Everything from adult drug users to binge drinkers, daily smokers, gambling disorders, all of these things that hopefully we want to become more independent from, that’s where Kansas could actually use some work,” said Gonzalez. “It ranked 38th overall.”

The area of personal vices is the only one where Kansas was below 25th.