(The Center Square) – Illinois is in the top ten in the U.S. for sin, according to a new report from WalletHub.
The report lists Illinois at No. 10 for most sinful states. “Sin” was separated into several different categories, including anger & hatred, jealousy, lust, vanity and vices, laziness, and greed. Researchers used those metrics to determine the amount of sin in each state.
Researcher Jill Gonzales explained Illinois’ ranking.
“The areas where they are more on the sinful side includes anger and hatred, jealousy, vanity, and lust,” Gonzales said.
While Illinois struggled in those areas, there were other areas where the state did well.
“Actually access in vices, such as smoking or binge drinking, that is where Illinois is actually not as sinful and doing better in those two categories,” Gonzales said.
That’s despite Illinois licensed cannabis dispensaries selling more than $2.1 billion in the drug since being made legal in 2020. More than $643 million of those total sales were to out-of-state residents.
Illinois has seen a tremendous amount of violent crimes, which impacted the state’s ranking, Gonzales said.
“Violent crimes and things like hate crimes would be part of the anger and hatred category,” Gonzales said. “That is an area where Illinois did see a spike.”
Illinois finished 10th overall on the list and ranked in the top 15 in four other categories.
11th – Jealousy11th – Lust7th – Vanity15th – Laziness
In terms of midwestern states, Illinois was far ahead of neighboring states, Gonzales said.
“Illinois is a bit of an outlier, it is the highest-ranking midwestern state as it ranks at No. 10,” Gonzales said. “No other Midwestern states are in the top ten as far as being sinful.”
Nevada ranked No. 1 in the report. Idaho was the least sinful.
