Survey Says: The Good, the Bad, and the Party Conversation

My inbox is regularly filled with the “results of surveys” that rank states against each other. It’s fair to say that less than 5% of these deserve a story on their own…and none deserve the constant follow-ups. Add to that, many of them have absolutely NOTHING to do with the state of Delaware. None of us care about a ranking of something in New Mexico or Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to dump 25 of these into one post and see how we’re doing and give you something to discuss at parties. This is for “entertainment” purposes only; I can’t confirm how accurate this data is and whether it’s being provided by someone with a business or political agenda.

The Good

Safest State for Valentine’s Day Travel: 1st. Personal injury experts at John Foy & Associates analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System over five years from 2018 to 2022 and found that on the seven days surrounding Feb. 14, we had ZERO crashes resulting in fatalities.

Quickest EMS Response Times: 5th. Personal injury lawyers at Omega Law Group collected EMS response times data for accidents resulting in at least one death across every state from 2018 to 2022 (which seems a bit of a strange filter) and found that Delaware has the fastest average response time of 7.26 minutes.

Mental Health Care Growth: 23rd. A study by Mission Connection analyzed five years of County Health Rankings data to see which states and counties have seen the most significant growth or reduction in the number of mental health care providers, shedding light on regions where access has improved or worsened. At a state level, Delaware has been one of the top-performing states. Over five years, the number of mental healthcare providers increased from 2,536 to 3,301 — a 30% increase.

Mobile Banking Engagement: 8th. A software development company I’ve never heard of analyzed nationwide Google search volume over the past 12 months for various mobile banking-related keywords. Delaware finished 8th with an average of 5,344 per 100,000 residents. Florida finished first with 7,983 searches per 10,000.

Pothole Problems: 47th. Philadelphia-based personal injury law firm KaplunMarx analyzed Google Trends data from the past five years, examining the search interest for terms like “pothole repair” and “pothole damage.” For the record, Washington State ranks first.

Access to Healthcare Professionals: 5th. Provider credentialing site Assured studied Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in each state and compared them to the local population. The number of HPSAs was calculated per 100,000 residents and the states were ranked from the lowest shortages to the highest. Delaware and Pennsylvania tied for fifth with 1.01 HPSAs per 100,000 residents (10 for us).

Business Starts: 2nd. Delaware had the second-highest number of business applications per 100,000 people, at 5,489, which is 224% higher than the U.S. average, according to Skyline Social. We had a total of 56,639 business applications between in the state from October 2023 to September 2024, trailing only Wyoming. September reported the most, with 5,060 business applications, while April was the least popular month, with 4,391 business applications.

Small Business Growth Rate: 2nd. OnDeck says we had the second highest small business growth rate in the United States, with a 5.55 percentage increase according to Census data from 2020-2021. Dover had the third highest small business growth rate among small metro rates at 9.06 percent, and Kent County performed best in Delaware at that same 9.06 percent rate.  That said…

The Bad

Best States for Entrepreneurs: 36th (Down 31 Spots).  Simplify LLC says Delaware saw a significant drop in rank, driven by weak consumer spending growth (0.9%, ranking No. 46, and down from 1.9% the previous year) and reduced worker migration (net gain of 2,253 educated adults, ranking No. 22, compared to 5,998 the previous year). Despite improvements in new business growth and job creation, Delaware’s high corporate income tax rate (8.7%, ranking No. 45) weighed heavily on its overall ranking.

Identity Theft: 2nd or 4th. WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 14 key metrics. Delaware ranks second for vulnerability to identity theft and fraud, and one contributing factor is that it has the highest number of people arrested for fraud per capita. It also has the highest rate of fraud for e-commerce, based on both shipping addresses and billing addresses located in the state. Laws in Delaware also are insufficient in some areas relating to identity theft and fraud. For example, Delaware doesn’t have any state-level laws addressing phishing or spyware, which can make residents more vulnerable to online scams and cyberattacks. Finally, WalletHub says Delaware had 1,500 fraud complaints and 359 identity theft complaints for every 100,000 residents last year, the fifth-most and sixth-most in the nation, respectively. The state also had the seventh-highest average loss amount due to identity theft, at over $9,600.

In a separate survey, investment fraud lawyers at the Investor Loss Center examined data from the Federal Trade Commission on the total number of identity theft crime reports per 100,000 population in the first three quarters of 2024. The states were then ranked based on the number of reports per 100,000 population. Delaware was fourth with 299 reports per 100,000 people in 2024. Floridians ranked first with 395 reports per 100,000. We will not speculate as to why that is.

Least Overworked: 1st. At first glance, I probably could have put this up in The Good category. According to data analysis by the Washington-based Phillips Law Firm, data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2024 and 2014 determined which states worked the most and least hours, with the First State coming out on the bottom. Delawareans worked 102 hours less annually than the national average, according to the data, equivalent to about 13 8-hour workdays. Louisiana residents worked the most, clocking 147 more hours – over half a month’s typical workdays – each year than the average state. The person who sent this to me said it’s “not a stat to be proud of; this is an outgrowth of the government paying people not to work through inefficient and ineffective social welfare programs. The coming tax burden from the lack of working population for this will cause outmigration at scale. Very shortsighted.”

Business Bankruptcies: 1st. MarketWatch Guides (a business partner of Dow Jones) tells us that we recorded the most at 122 per 100,000 people, well ahead of New Jersey’s 14 and Washington, D.C.’s 12. This one could be misleading, considering that our business-friendly laws and regulations led to our having the second-highest business applications per capita in 2023. When these businesses fail, they also file for bankruptcy in Delaware.

Wrongful Convictions: 4th. Personal injury lawyers Omega Law Group based on data from The Natgional Registry of Exonerations from 2020-2024. Rankings were determined by scaling wrongful convictions per 100,000 residents. We took fourth place with 4.85 wrongful convictions per 100,000 residents. However, we also had a much lower average time spent wrongfully convicted of five years.  Illinois ranked first with 18.41 per 100,000 people, far ahead of Michigan (and everyone else) at 5.98.

Most Distracted: Top 20. Cambridge Mobile Telematics offered a now-outdated link, but it did say, “While Delaware is one of the top 20 most distracted states, it’s also one of the most improved. Since 2022, Delaware has cut distraction by 19 seconds per hour. After near-record high traffic fatalities, the DelDOT Leadership Academy launched the  “Be DelAWARE” safe driving campaign, urging drivers and businesses to take a safe driving pledge. The Office of Highway Safety also launched the “Be Alert and Arrive Alive Campaign” to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving through advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Pandora, and local radio stations. The state’s efforts helped prevent 718 crashes, 402 injuries, three fatalities, and $28M in economic damage.”

Party Conversation

Food Recalls: 4th. Food safety experts at FOSS IQX analyzed data from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service on the number of food recalls from 2010-2024. We’ve allegedly had 21 of them, with 2.04 food recalls per 100,000 citizens. Eight happened in 2017 alone.

Red Light-Related Crash Risks: 8th. Delaware saw 953 drivers involved in fatal crashes between 2018-2022, 160 of which were tied to red light-related crashes, according to a survey using National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. That’s 16.8%. Nevada was worst at 22.2%.

Game Night Cheaters: 5th. The research team at World of Card Games based their rankings on Google search volume data for terms related to cheating in various card and board games. Google search volume (per 10,000) was 13.88 — far below those cheaters in Vermont who recorded 20.07.

Most Credit Cards Per Person: 4th. MarketWatch Guides (a business partner of Dow Jones) says Delawareans carry 4.2 credit cards per person, which it says can indicate an unhealthy relationship with debt as it increases the chances of a person spending more than they can afford to pay back.

Online Shopping Obsession: 7th. This one is a double-edged sword. High ranking, but what’s the impact on local retailers? Logate analyzed search volumes for more than 300 popular online stories in 2024. Yet another survey where the rankings are made per 100,000 people. Delaware had 891,947 average monthly keyword searches for online stories, or 86,351 per 100,000 shoppers. We weren’t that far off from the top (Colorado with 89,393 per 1,000.

Most Expensive Romantic Breaks: 8th. QR Code Generator looked at regional data on the number, average rating, and cost of hotels categories as romantic on booking.com and the number and average rating of restaurants labeled romantic on Tripadvisor.  It wasn’t clear whether this was a good or bad, so I included it with the Ugly.

Injury-Prone States: 8th. Some Florida personal injury lawyers — and yes, we’re seeing a trend here — investigated which state is searching the most for terms and keywords relating to injuries. The research was done by compiling the search volume in each state for various terms such as ‘have I dislocated my wrist’, ‘injury symptoms’, ‘signs of [injury]’, and ‘slip on ice injury’. The average monthly search volume was then calculated, and the final ranking was determined by the number of monthly searches per 100,000 people. We tied for eighth with Colorado with a monthly average of 339 per 100,000 people, trailing first-place Vermont (again) with a monthly average of 426 searches. For what it’s worth, most of the states at the top of the ranking searched the most for “signs of concussion.”

Holiday Gift Fails: Personal Hygiene Products. In a seriously “Duh” result, DatingAdvice claims to have surveyed 3,000 Delaware women that would likely cause them to not be happy. Personal hygiene products topped the list, followed by cleaning supplies or a vacuum cleaner, a diet book or weight loss program membership, last-minute “panic gifts” from drugstores, and an unrequested self-help book. I know two people who will tell me they wished they saw this before Christmas.

Most Driven to Be Famous: 6th. PlayNJ.com analyzed data from Google Keyword Planner to calculate the average number of monthly searches per state related to becoming famous. We ranked sixth in the nation, with an average of 11.39 monthly searches per 100,000 residents. “How can I become famous” topped the search queries in Delaware.

Party Dress Colors: Online fashion retailer BooHoo.com says Red takes the top spot in Delaware, followed by Green, then Black. This one you can check for yourself.