How Diverse Is Connecticut?

With matters of race, culture, ethnicity, religion, socio-economics and other hot-button identity issues swirling around, it begs the question, just how diverse is your state? For Connecticut, the state is the most diverse in New England.

The Constitution State is the nation's 14th most diverse, a little better in that respect than Massachusetts (18th) and Rhode Island (21st), according to a new ranking by the personal finance website WalletHub. And at 14th, Connecticut is significantly more diverse than the three other New England states, New Hampshire (47th), Vermont (48th) and Maine (49th).

"In many states, the population reflects an eclectic mix of not just races but also cultures, religions, economic statuses, educational backgrounds and other characteristics, as people of various demographic profiles are forced to come into contact with one another," writes WalletHub's senior writer Richie Bernardo. "In order to determine where idea and identity exchanges have occurred at the highest level — and where the population is relatively more homogeneous — WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states across five key diversity categories listed below."

Those categories are Socio-Economic Diversity, Cultural Diversity, Economic Diversity, Household Diversity and Religious Diversity. Click here to view WalletHub's full methodology.

Of those criteria, Connecticut's best showing was sixth for Socio-Economic Diversity (household income and educational attainment), and its worst showing was 44th for Economic Diversity (industry and occupational diversity).

As for the nation as a whole, the most diverse state is California, followed by Texas and Hawaii. In fourth and fifth place are two states that Connecticut residents know pretty well, New Jersey and New York, respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum, 47, 48 and 49 we already know. The other two are Montana (46th) and West Virginia (50th).

To view WalletHub's 2017's Most & Least States in America, click here.

Photo credit: Georgia Gwinnett College