Illinois Ranks #12 On Most Hated States List

Illinois seems to lead the nation in categories that you really don't want to lead the pack in. However, when it comes to being hated by other states, we're not even in the top ten.

I hesitate to use the word hate when we're talking about state-to-state relations, but that's the way the folks at BestLifeOnline decided their survey should be worded. And, their rankings are determined by haters from other states combined with the way residents feel about their own state.

Here's how BestLifeOnline came up with the numbers:

We started off by calculating the percentage of the population that has recently moved out of each state. While locals don't give reviews of their hometowns like they would a restaurant on Yelp, they do tend to vote with their feet, so we compared the population increase or decrease in each state to the national average of 0.6 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Next, we analyzed a Gallup poll of which citizens felt the most pride in their home states—defined as the percentage of people who agreed with the statement that their state is "the best or one of the best possible states to live." The states with the least pride ranked higher in our Hatred Index. Finally, we looked at the findings of illustrator and amateur researcher Matt Shirley, who polled his 320,000 Instagram followers from across the country in 2020 to discover which state they hate the most.

Like most things in life, it's not official until Instagram weighs in.

So, let's start by taking a look at the top ten most hated states before we get to Illinois' numbers.

New Jersey
Texas
California
Oklahoma
Florida
Michigan
Kentucky
Indiana
Alabama
Kansas

New York came in as the 11th most-hated, with a 41 percent state pride rating, people in Massachusetts hating them the most, and a “hatred index” of 207.

Here in Illinois, we're #12. We have a 19% state pride rating, Wisconsin residents hating us the most, and our hatred index sits at 197.

Meanwhile, the least-hated states were out west: Utah, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. Idaho is your "winner" as the least-hated state.

In Illinois, we've become calloused to the slings and arrows from both ourselves and other states. Some Texans are having a hard time coming to grips with their #2 ranking: