How is South Dakota doing as a state?

The bipartisan State of the Nation Project has collected extensive data on South Dakota and compared it with other states. Below we provide a brief progress report that shows the state rank and trend for each measure.

South Dakota ranks higher, on average, on the topics of Work and Labor Force (1), Civil Liberties (1), and Social Capital (6), but lower on Physical Health (27), Citizenship and Democracy (36), and Economy (50). South Dakota also outperforms its Midwest neighbors in 3 of the 14 topics and is improving over time on 8 of the 28 measures.

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South Dakota Summary Table

How to Read This Report:

We report each measure three different ways: State Rank, State Trend, State vs. US Trend. Each result is color coded as either red (negative/worsening), yellow (neutral/stable), or green (positive/improving), as indicated below. If the simple trends were erratic, had too few data points, or had no data points, we do not color code and label the trend as “mixed,” "unclear," or "NA," respectively.

State Rank

(Where are we now?)

State Trend

(Where are we going?)

State vs. US Trend

(How do we compare?)

Top third of states
(i.e., ranks 1-17)

Improving
Trendline is improving by >5% and most points are improving relative to the first data point.

Improving
Trendline is improving relative to the national trend and rank is improving by 2+ rank spots.

Middle third of states
(i.e., ranks 18-34)

Neutral/Stable
Doesn't fall into improving, worsening, mixed, unclear, or NA categories.

Neutral/Stable
Trendline is improving/worsening the same amount as the national trend or rank is changing by <2 spots.

Bottom third of states
(i.e., ranks 35-51)

Worsening
Trendline is worsening by >5% and most points are worsening relative to the first data point.

Worsening
Trendline is worsening relative to national trend and rank is declining by 2+ rank spots

Mixed
Large shares of points are improving and worsening by >5% in different parts of the trend.

Mixed
This label only applies when a measure has more than 1 trendline. One trendline is improving and another is worsening.

Unclear
Not enough data to determine a trend.

Unclear
Not enough data to determine a comparison.

Not Applicable
No data.

For more information on our definitions and methods, please see the Data Notes section.