New Jersey Among Most Independent States

We are getting ready for Independence Day weekend here at the Jersey Shore. Have you ever wondered just how independent we are?

Just how independent is the Garden State? WalletHub did research to determine which states in America are the most self sufficient, and believe it or not, New Jersey did pretty well when the rankings were revealed.

WalletHub used 39 key metrics to determine how dependent each state is on the federal government due to finances, their jobs and personal vices. Based on their statistics, New Jersey is the 13th most independent state in the nation.

Here's how we ranked in specific categories in the study...

Financial Dependency...26th

Government dependency...7th

Job Market Dependency...18th

There were other categories that were highlights for the Garden Stat in the study. We ranked 4th best for least federally dependent state, and we also rank 4th for highest median household income in the nation.

Not that it's a competition, but we did do better in the research than our closest neighbors. New York ranks at #21 on the list and our friends in Pennsylvania come in at #30. And Delaware finished at #18.

You can visit WalletHub to learn about their methodology in this research. So what states are the most independent? The top 3 (from 3-1) are Colorado, Virginia and Utah.

It seems lately that New Jersey rankings have been surprisingly high in surveys we'd like them to be high in. It doesn't usually work out that way. So, we''ll take this one, too. A top 15 state for independence, just in time for Independence Day.