today I'm going to tell you why Arkansas has a growth chart that looks like a scary roller
coaster that's right today we're looking at the state that has more jokes told about it
than any other state if you're a baby boomer or a gen xer chances are you've heard a few
jokes over the years that had to do with Arkansas and probably getting hitched to a close relative
Jeff Foxworthy made a career about making redneck jokes he's from Central Georgia but every single
joke he told could be said about Arkansas just as easily its nickname is the natural state and it
has a very strange growth chart in the early 1800s it saw Triple digit growth and then it
dropped down to double digit for a few decades then they had a few decades where they were in
the negative then they went up to single then to double digits for a couple decades and in the last
decade they saw 3.3 percent growth thanks to a high birth rate and relatively low death rate
things are slowing down in Arkansas again and it's predicted that they will lose around 5 of their
population by 2030 just because people aren't moving to Arkansas anymore so why is this to
today I'm going to give you the results of a survey where they asked people that were
getting ready to move had they considered Arkansas and if they said no they had a few
things they could choose from as to the reason why in these videos some of the
reasons are the same as other states but the stats are always different they also asked the
people that lived in Arkansas if they would ever recommend moving to Arkansas to a family
member 62 percent of the people in Arkansas said no got it get it good let's take a look
number 10 the weather is hot and humid in the summer the average temperature in July is about
92 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity can be oppressive if you've ever spent a summer in
the South you know exactly what I'm talking about the whole area has that swamp smell
to it too now the winters can be cold and in some areas it can be very snowy the average
low temperature in January is about 32 degrees Fahrenheit and there can be a lot of snow that
follows that now I bring up the fact that they have snow because for some reason people seem
to think that the southern states don't get any snow that's wrong they do get snow do they get
Minnesota Wisconsin snow in January no but they do get cold and they do see some snow
number nine it's too rural yes this is a big complaint for people they think it's
too rural I mean it kind of plays into their whole Natural State it is kind of rural their
cities aren't terribly big the most populous city in Arkansas is Little Rock the state capital and
they only have about 204 000 residents now that's just the city itself the whole metro
area has less than a million 748 000. Arkansas is filled to the brim with little small rural
towns and when I say nice small rural towns I hope you don't get the image of New England's
small town or anything like that they do have some nice small towns but a majority
of them are the type of place where you get off the interstate get a glimpse of the town
and the first thing out of your mouth is keep driving I can hold it Arkansas only
has a population of about 3 million residents most of them live in small towns or rural areas
number eight the poverty yep a lot of people don't want to move here because
this state has legendary poverty levels right now they're doing better if you want to call it
better give an example in 2020 at one point their poverty level was 18.6 meaning almost
one in five people in Arkansas were living below the poverty line now they've gotten
better in 2022 they got all the way down to about 15 percent at that time the national
average was about 11 Arkansas also has a really low median household income in 2021
the median household income in Arkansas was forty seven thousand two hundred and
sixty dollars the national average at that time was right around sixty three thousand dollars
number seven the crime rate the crime rate in Arkansas is nuts really it's their violent crime
rate is kind of crazy nobody really has much to steal so there's not a lot of property crime in
2022 the violent crime rate in Arkansas was 4.2 for every 1 000 residents meaning four people
basically are going to have some sort of violent encounter every single year out of a thousand
now property crime is done hundred thousand but the property crime rate was 2211 for every 100
000 residents to their most notorious cities for Crime are Little Rock and Pine Bluff let me give
you the stats on that in Little Rock the crime rate is 217 above the national average their
violent crime rate is 432 percent above the national average Pine Bluff is worse believe
it or not can you get worse yes you can Pine Bluff their total crime rate is 238 percent
above the national average while their violent crime rates just a hair over Little Rock's 433
above the national average Go Pine Bluff and crime always keeps people away now obviously
to be fair a lot of their smaller towns aren't going to have crazy crime rates like
Pine Bluff and Little Rock but still on average there's a little bit higher than other states
number six education yeah the education system ain't great in Arkansas the state
has a really low high school graduation rate in 2020 it was 82.7 percent now that's not
the worst the absolute worst is Arizona with 74 graduation rate most of the country is in
the low 90s on top of that only about 25.5 percent of Arkansas has bachelor's degree
and overall their public education system is ranked 48th in the country
number five Healthcare ranking Arkansas doesn't have the best health care System
I I mean I'm sure it's fine but most the time in cases like this it's accessibility
how many hospitals do they have how many clinics do they have how many doctors and
nurses do they have usually that is where the problem is Arkansas ranks 47th in the country
for health care that's not great especially if you're you know of a certain age if you get up
into your 50s you're start looking at things like that when you're 20 30 I understand you
don't care if they got doctors at all because you're Invincible wait till you hit about 47.
number four you're gonna die sooner than later yeah Arkansas they have a really low
life expectancy in 2020 the life expectancy in Arkansas was 73.2 years which was lower
than the national life expectancy of 78.2 you're losing five years just by moving
to Arkansas all the New England states are 79 years 79.1 79.2 the highest in the country is
Hawaii with 80.7 the leading causes of death in Arkansas heart disease takes 22.3 percent
of the people cancer takes 20.8 percent and one guy died from having his cheeks
super glued together I guess he went into a panic and uh had a heart attack of some sort
number three politics now this one always shows up on these lists people have a problem with
the politics whatever state it is I'm not saying there's anything wrong with anyone's
politics it just some people it bugs them I don't get it but is what it is so here's the
rundown on politics in Arkansas the state is politically conservative Arkansas is a very
conservative state and its politics are often dominated by social and religious conservatism
this can be a turn off for people on the more liberal or Progressive side of the political
Spectrum so much so that it was voted number three for why people won't move to Arkansas
number two travel this is a weird one so it's hard to travel to Arkansas Arkansas is not a
major Transportation Hub Arkansas doesn't have any major international airports and it's not a major
stop on any major interstate highway this can make it difficult and expensive to travel to and
from Arkansas if you don't travel a lot there's parts of the country that are just too far away
from any of the big cities get too comfortably I guess she's not comfortably within reason like
if you want to fly to I go to Honesdale all the time I have to leave Portland and land in some
place like North Carolina and then come back to Scranton and then I still got an hour's drive if
I landed in Philadelphia I got a two hour drive up here in Portland Oregon if you wanted to go
to bend you got to fly into Portland Oregon and take like a three-hour drive down to bend well
the entire state of Arkansas is kind of like that I mean Little Rock has an airport it's just not
one of the major ones so not a lot of flights come through there if you're gonna fly there A lot of
times it's like you gotta fly to Atlanta then you got to come back to Arkansas saw or in some cases
you gotta fly to Chicago then to Atlanta then back to Arkansas or you got to go to Salt Lake City
then to Dallas then to Arkansas if you're someone that travels for work this is a big turn off and I
could see why I would make it on the list I don't think it belongs at number two but apparently this
is such a problem in Arkansas that it makes it number two on a list like this all right before
we get to number one don't forget we have another Channel called on this day there's a link for that
Channel Down Below in the description area please go over and subscribe all right on to number one
and number one teen pregnancy yes this is a problem especially if you're a parent Arkansas
has a high rate of teen pregnancy in 2020 the teen pregnancy rate in Arkansas was 14.5 for every 1
000 women aged 15 to 19 which was higher than the national average of 10.8 for every 1
000 women this can definitely be concern for parents who are considering moving
to Arkansas with young girls or young boys someone's got to get them pregnant right I
have a friend that actually moved her kids from Tennessee because she had three daughters she
has three daughters and where they're from in Tennessee that's kind of the trend it's
what happens she's on my girls around that because if your friends are kind of doing
things like that sometimes you slip into that mode too we always hope our kids go to school
and fit in you know sometimes they fit into the wrong things too not just the good things
all right that's today's video hope you guys enjoyed it hope you got some
information of it now go out have a great day and be nice to each other