New York is by far the least free state in the Union

A new report assesses the freedom enjoyed by Americans in each state — and reveals that Democratic "blue states" are the least free.
The latest edition of "Freedom in the 50 States" has been released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. It presents an updated ranking of American states based on how their policies promote freedom in the fiscal, regulatory, and personal realms.
The report "examines state and local government intervention across a wide range of policy categories — from tax burden to court systems, from eminent domain laws to occupational licensing, and from home schooling regulations to drug policy," Mercatus states.
The three basic categories examined are:

Fiscal policy, including the tax burden, government spending, and government debt. Regulatory policy, including freedom from tort abuse, property rights protection, labor market freedom, and cable and telecom freedom. Personal freedom, including gun control freedom, alcohol freedom, marriage freedom, gambling freedom, civil liberties, education policy, and campaign finance freedom.

Mercatus also considers dozens of "variables," including freedom from nanny laws, seatbelt enforcement, local rent control, motorcycle helmet laws, fireworks laws, trans-fat bans, and tobacco restrictions.
Taking all these factors into consideration, the report finds that New York is the least free state, ranking at No. 50.
"New York is by far the least free state in the Union," the report discloses. "It is therefore no surprise that New York residents have been heading for the exits: 9 percent of the state's 2000 population, on net, left the state for another state between 2000 and 2011, the highest such figure in the nation.
"New York has, by a wide margin, the highest taxes in the country: 14.0 percent of income."
The second least free state is California, followed in order by New Jersey, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Maryland.
All of these states voted to re-elect President Barack Obama in 2012. 

The freest state is North Dakota, according to the Mercatus analysis. "The state scores exceptionally well on regulatory and fiscal policy. Moreover, North Dakota scores slightly above average on personal freedom. It is also the state that improved the most over the last decade," and "has very low taxes and government debt."
North Dakota is followed by South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Missouri. All these states except New Hampshire voted for Republican Mitt Romney in the last presidential election.
Among the larger states, red state Texas ranks No. 14 and blue state Florida, 23.
"Measuring freedom is important because freedom is valuable to people," the report states. "At the very least, it is valuable to those whose choices are restricted by public policy."

See entire report: http://freedominthe50states.org/