Study: Alabama ranks the 4th most federally dependent state

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[Photo Credit: WalletHub]

Alabama can officially thank Washington, D.C. for paying the majority of its bills.

According to the personal finance website WalletHub‘s newly released in-depth analysis of 2017’s Most & Least Federally Dependent States, Alabama ranks the 4th most federally dependent in the country. Last year, the state was ranked third.

For some the news may come as surprise, given that Alabama is one of the most anti-big government, Republican states in the country and hasn’t hasn’t given a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since 1976. But for those who live there, and know about the state Legislature’s aversion to taxes, it makes a whole lot of sense.

Couple that with federal land, military installations, the fact Alabama has an exceptionally high poverty rate and thus receives disproportionately large shares of federal dollars, and the dependency adds up.

In order to identify which states most and least depend on federal support, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states across three key metrics: return on taxes paid to the federal government; federal funding as a share of state revenue; and share of federal jobs.

Federal dependency of Alabama (1 = most dependent, 25 = avg.):

  • 4th – Return on taxes paid to the federal government
  • 14th – Federal funding as a share of state revenue
  • 9th – Share of federal jobs

But Alabama isn’t the only southern state dependent on the federal government, neighbor state Mississippi rank no.2 and and Tennessee following right behind at no.8.

Here’s how Alabama compares to the rest of the country:

Source: WalletHub