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By Kyle B. Hansen (contact) 
Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 | 7:10 p.m.
For people looking to move up the economic ladder, the worst place in the nation to live is Nevada, according to a report released today.
Nevada scored 21.3 out of 100 on the Opportunity Index, putting the state in last place in the ranking by Opportunity Nation, a campaign from Be the Change, and the American Human Development Project, part of the Social Science Research Council.
The ranking is based on criteria in three general categories: Economy, education and community health and civic life.
Nevada scored 4 out of 10 in the economy category, 1 out of 10 in education and 1 out of 10 in community health and civic life. The national averages for all three categories were between 5.4 and 5.6.
Nevada had the lowest scores in the nation of the percentage of high school students who graduate on time and the number of preschool-aged children enrolled in school. Plus, the report said 11.2 percent of Nevada teenagers are not in school or working.
The Silver State also received the lowest score in the nation on access to health care, with 86.7 primary care providers per 100,000 residents.
And the state had the second highest violent crime score in the nation, with 707 crimes per 100,000 people.
"Having scored at or below the national average in many of the metrics used to formulate their Opportunity Score, Nevada residents have much work to do before they can say they provide their residents with the opportunities to improve their lives," said Opportunity Nation Executive Director Mark Edwards in a statement. "Providing quality education, sound economies, and safe communities are the stepping stones to economic mobility in this country, and Nevada leaders should view the results of the index as a guide to seeing areas that need to improve."
In a breakdown of counties, Clark received a D grade, with scores of three out of five in economy, one out of five in education and two out of five in community.
All of the bottom 15 states in the index are in the South or Southwest. Nevada is ranked 51, behind Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana.
Wow, that's really sad news.
At least Vegas ranks #1 in population full of inbred a-holes who can't read or drive....but loves to smoke, liter and be unpleasant to one another.
Hey, we're the new Alabama in terms of jobs, and the new Detroit/Oakland in terms of violent crime. It doesn't get any better in terms of illustrations of Nevada's bankrupt leadership in the Legislature.
Now all we need is a Hospital Train to California so we can escape the worst Health Care System in the U.S.
Is it not interesting that Nothing has been Demanded of the Casino and Mining Industries and Nothing has ever been provided.
Yeah! Let's hear it for small government and low taxes!
We can thank our incompetant leaders for not promoting diversification and the gaming industry for exploiting that fact.
It's the mega-resort-casino way of life. They want to keep the employees dumb, to hell with quality of life, and as long as the 1% at the top of these mega corporations are living the high life, why should they give a flying ---- about the rest of the population?
They have the politicians in their back pockets, pay little tax compared to their employees and only care about making the next billion whether here or in Communist China.
Yeah, they "love" locals, don't they? Love us to death.
So explain again why some politicians want to cut off unemployment benefits? Are you listening Congressman Heller?
Nevada is the training ground for bankruptcy lawyers. They can't fail to succeed even after sleeping half the morning.
Always an honor to be lumped together with the likes of Louisiana and West Virginia. Thanks Harry Reid. You da man!
So what, who cares! Like all reports completed by outsiders somewhere hidden in this report is the solution. The solution is always more taxes and more government. Just leave us alone and we will work through our own problems.
Oh Mark, the State Higher Education Subsidy (% of annual per pupil education and related costs covered by state) is 60% for Nevada, that is higher than the National Average of 52%. With that, we still can't graduate kids on-time.
Even with our high unemployment, our median income is still HIGHER than the National Average, and the percentage below the poverty line is LOWER than the National Average.
Our lack of group memberships and volunteerism has nothing to do with the size of government and tax rates.
It is very clear we in Nevada don't care about each other, and we especially don't care about each others' kids.
The casino operators have made thier beds and they will be sleeping in them soon enough. While wages and benifits and quality of life are improving around the rest of the country, nevada quality of life declines and the cost of living increases while wages continue thier decline. The exodus of quality labor will come soon enough and then quality visitors. Can you picture Las Vegas as a ghost town. I have seen similiar sized one industry towns in the rust belt dry up and blow away. Even Wynn and Addleson are prepared to jump to Macau along with MGM. And Harrahs has control of 100's of operations around the US. They are prepared to abandon this dysfunctional town they have built for the sake of quick personal gains.
Wow, reelecting Reid has sure helped.
Time to 'Transplant' yourself somewhere else.
I'm staying! I like it here and so does my family.
http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2010/07...
Good thing we have 'the juice'.
Those green energy jobs will kick in any time now.
Nevadans have always been independent and resillient. Look at the bright side and at the almost unlimited growth opportunities here in just a few job catagories: Chemical engineer aka meth lab operator, prostitute/escort, street pharmaceutical salesperson, drug and alcohol rehab clinic proprietor, LVMPD disaster clean-up person (cleans up the blood and scattered brain matter after Metro's shootings.)
All middle-class people should look carefully at Nevada (2nd lowest tax burden in the country) to see their future under the Republican mantra of "lower taxes" and "less government." Nevada is the poster child of "lower taxes, less government" and -- apparently -- not a place where businesses would choose to locate.
Republican administrations have overseen the redistribution of wealth since Ronald Reagan set our country on the road to decline in 1980. Since that time, wealth has been grabbed out of the hands of the middle class and placed in the pockets of the wealthy.
Want the financial facts? Read the excellent series on Income Inequality at: http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/22...
Excerpt from http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/22...
"Another compelling reason to focus on taxation is that income-tax policy has changed very dramatically during the last 30 years. Before Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the top income tax bracket stood at or above 70 percent, where it had been since the Great Depression. (In the 1950s and the Mad Men early 1960s, the top bracket exceeded 90 percent!) Throughout the Great Compression, as the economy boomed and income inequality dwindled, the top bracket resided at a level that even most Democrats would today call confiscatory. Reagan dropped the top bracket from 70 percent to 50 percent, and eventually pushed it all the way down to 28 percent. Since then, it has hovered between 30 percent and 40 percent. If President Obama lets George W. Bush's 2001 tax cut expire for families earning more than $250,000, as he's expected to do, Tea Partiers will call him a Bolshevik. But at a whisker under 40 percent (up from 35), the top bracket would remain 30 to 50 percentage points below what it was under Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford."
Want your children and grandchildren to be poorer? Easy, vote Republican.
Let's see:
If low taxes supposedly lead to more jobs, wouldn't no taxes lead to even more jobs?
The gaming companies pay less max gaming tax (6.75%) than people pay in sales tax for a pair of underwear (8.10%). Someone is getting hosed.
The mining companies have it even better with a tax rate of 5% that hasn't changed since crooked politicians wrote it into the state constitution in 1864.
Any one else notice how most stories have more unverified comments than verified comments?
I don't know where they get this from. I've lived in many cities in America, and say this is by far the best I've ever been in for me and my family. Granted I'm in Henderson, not Las Vegas proper.
Los Angeles, and the area's around it are far worse. Jersey? Horrible. Columbus? Etc... etc.. They all suck for raising families, schooling, cost of living, etc...
This report is stupid.
I love Vegas, will never leave.
Clearly the liberals at "Opportunity Nation" are to blame for this blasphemy of our Nevada way of life. Don't these communists know about our low taxes for international mining corporations, casinos and plutocrats?? Low taxes for the top %1 creates job opportunity for all of us Nevadans. This is the gospel of wealth, preached to us by Gov. Gibbons, Senator Ensign and Congressman Heck. As wealth trickles up to the top %1 and as more of us can't afford health care, then job opportunity soars.
Yours in Christ,
Rob Whitetrash - Pahrump Deluxe Trailer Park
All the more reasons/excuses for the droves of social-cockroaches which infested the southern Nevada region during the past couple decades of economic honey to seek their next meal elsewhere -- ultimately assisting in "normalizing" the region's economic conditions.
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bad press,,,im up in buffalo ny ,its just as bad here as there//i left vegas for personal reasons,the whole country is not good/i think vegas will come back/they must improvise/nevada is one of the last great states in america,,i seen it start to fall there when the no smoking ban was passed,ive lived all over an when they keep passing laws to take away our freedoms,thats whats cool about nv,if i go out at 4 in the morning i can get a beer/place a bet,i was in so cal when they passed the law no more beer on the beach,man im a workin man and it was nice to sit on the beach and have a beer after work,,not any more,,the bad thing i seen about vegas was getting rid of the small casinos im a local dont need the big seen it was nice to go to a small joint,,there all gone
A couple of those categories the PUBLIC has full control over.
Education. Show up on time and everyday for school. Study, listen to your teachers and you just might learn something. Better education is in the hands of the parents and students and it will not cost the taxpayers a cent to use it to the max.
Civic activities. That is also an easy one. Get off your butt, stop watching T.V. and playing video games all the time. Get out and get involved. Not really that hard but you have to do it. No one can do it for you.
Las Vegas has always been the type of town that you make it. No one can make it better or worse for you. Many of us have had a great life here and still do because we do something about our life instead of complaining all the time about not receiving hand outs from others.
Vegas is what you make of it. The people of the town can make it great or let it sink. Your choice which you choose.
We need to find a way to get the bad and lazy people to leave LV.
Free tickets to Minnesota, Mass and CT.
They have the higher opportunity rating.
We can buy our way to a better LV.
Basically, if you are fat, lazy, and uneducated your chances of finding work in Nevada are slim.
We need to post this ranking on all relocation websites, airports, and highways that enter Nevada.
Kudos to Sandoval, Whoresford, Raggio, Berkely, Reid and all the others I forgot to mention for making Nevada the official WORST place to be and look for a job. From last in education, to first in foreclosure to first in unemployment. Job well done. Thanks to the Nevada sheeple to for making it all happen.
VegasLee framed it well,"Vegas is what you make of it. The people of the town can make it great or let it sink. Your choice which you choose."
And it also supports what George Washington commented in regards to VOTERS in Nevada:
"Kudos to Sandoval, Whoresford, Raggio, Berkely, Reid and all the others I forgot to mention for making Nevada the official WORST place to be and look for a job. From last in education, to first in foreclosure to first in unemployment. Job well done. Thanks to the Nevada sheeple to for making it all happen."
Nevada was ripe for the picking, with a newly transplanted and apathetic populace (large percentage are ILLEGAL immigrants, who have no fear of laws being enforced), people too busy with making a quick buck to concern themselves with building a community, a home town, or home state to take pride in.
The politicians took advantage of uncontrolled population growth, some even exercised indiscretions, while no one was bothering to look.
Has anyone begun to examine the crisis Nevada is in to find remedies? Sure, there are now countless studies, research analysis, and commissions out there doing what they do for some high dollars to tell us what we already know. Thanks. Wished my pocketbook felt richer for it.
Is Nevada worth defending and fixing, or is it worth more by EXPLOITING it?
There's your "opportunity"!!!
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Nevada ranks last in job opportunity if you are not qualified to do any skilled work. We are having a hard time filling living wage job openings.
No one, myself included, has the guts do anything to change this state. 99% of us are just lazy sheep. We're getting eaten by the lions one at a time. None of us are immune. So lets stop commenting on the troubles and inequalities and corruption in this state and learn to like it cause nobody is gonna save us. And since we're not going to do our selves, we should shut up and go down to the casino and get drunk or do what ever it is that we do to block out reality.
Grudgingly, I have to agree with "Star" on this. Her words, "Has anyone begun to examine the crisis Nevada is in to find remedies? Sure, there are now countless studies, research analysis, and commissions out there doing what they do for some high dollars to tell us what we already know."
Precisely why I blasted Greenspun and his trusted association with the Brookings Institute. I'm sick of hearing their uppity rephrased proposals on what we need to do here in Nevada.
There is probably no hope for Nevada. But, for sure, there is definitely no hope for Las Vegas. This town will remain around for some time, floundering in a state of continuing despair. Then, after as "Star" said, all has been exploited by choice, Las Vegas like many other abandoned towns and cities will slowly blow away with the desert winds.
There are some things in life that have just gone too far in the wrong direction and can never be brought back again to its original form. Las Vegas fits this mold perfectly. And besides, all these fantasyland transformations of Las Vegas are being proposed by who? How about the same developers, resort owners, state and local political leaders and their descendents that drove our meadowlands into the sewer in the first place! Are the remaining Las Vegans going to be so stupid again to be taken by these crooks? Sure they will. Simply because the majority who live here in Las Vegas are greedy, and like any drug addict, are desperate and gullible to the words of those who guarantee them their fix. Dream on, it will never happen.
For those of you that are young enough to start over, get out of this town now and start a new life somewhere else. For us old people, I guess most of us are stuck here in seeing the final decaying stages of Las Vegas take root. We shall in some form witness these final exploitations of this once vibrant city that we loved so much.