Tennessee finds itself on a number of glowing "Top 10" lists these days, but there's one list the state would probably like to exit.
That would be WalletHub's list of the most sinful states, where the Volunteer State finds itself seventh in the 2023 ranking.
Now, no one would mistake the list for a scientific breakdown of a term like "sinful" that is subjective in the first place, but the rankings are based on objective data.
Tennessee fell one place on the personal finance website's list this year from 2022, when it was sixth. The state was seventh in 2021 and sixth in 2020.
So what's got us so high on the sinful list, as we write this on Valentine's Day?
Anger and hatred, for one -- one category, that is, in the WalletHub ranking.
In 2022, Tennessee was third in the country in violent crimes per 100,000 people, according to the FBI, and 10th in firearms deaths in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Another list had us tied for the most violent crimes per capita in the country.
Memphis, in one list alone, was said to have the highest violent and property crime rate in the country.
The state has been in the top three in the anger and hatred category on WalletHub's last four lists, including second in 2023.
We're also in the top five in the categories of excesses and vices (fourth), greed (fifth) and lust (eighth).
If you're sensing WalletHub's categories are akin to the "seven deadly sins," you're on to something.
The excesses and vices category includes Tennessee's standing on the number of obese adults, its number who drink to excess, its number of fast-food restaurants, its reports of drunken driving, its percentage of smokers and coffee drinkers, its marijuana usage, its opioid prescriptions dispensed, its drug overdoses and its debt-to-income ratio.
Various statistics report the state is fifth in percentage of overweight adults (2019), eighth in the highest smoking rate (2022) and 13th in opioid overdose deaths (2020).
If you read this newspaper, you know what a scourge opioids are in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia. While Chattanooga's opioid overdoses were up only slightly in 2022 over 2021, they were up 66% in 2021 over 2020. In Georgia, according to the state's Department of Health, opioid-related deaths rose 207% between 2010 and 2020.
We're not quite sure how the Volunteer State made it in the top 10 in greed, which is calculated by WalletHub from the number of casinos, percentage of gambling-related arrests, percentage of charitable donations as share of income, population with gambling disorders and embezzlement arrest rates.
After all, Tennessee has no casinos, and we're in the middle of the pack in our gambling problems. However, we're only 38th in the percentage of our income we give to charity, and we're in the bottom 10 -- according to CasinoGrounds -- for states providing the best support for problem gambling.
And then there's lust, the ranking for which was calculated from teen birth rate, a Google search for "XXX Entertainment," time spent on adult entertainment sites and prostitution arrests.
This one we earned.
Tennessee was third in prostitution arrests per 10,000 people in 2016, according to ProCon.org; seventh in teen birth rate in 2020, according to the CDC; and eighth in average visit (10:34 minutes) while watching pornography, according to the website Sexual Alpha.
Oh, we're still in the top half of states for jealousy (13th) and laziness (19th), two of WalletHub's other categories, but we've fallen into the lower, better half of states for vanity -- down from 21st in 2022.
Wonder what that latter category involves? It's calculated from the number of beauty salons, a Google search for "Top 5 Plastic Surgeons" and expenditures on personal care products and services.
Guess that means Aunt Betty is doing her own "do" these days instead of making her weekly visit to Harriet's Hairport. But we'll take it.
You won't be surprised to know that Nevada (No. 1 in greed and laziness) and California (No. 1 in lust and No. 2 in vanity, natch) are the top two states on the list.
Wyoming and Idaho are the two least sinful states, according to WalletHub.
While lists such as the "Most Sinful States in the U.S." are fun to read and disaggregate, a state's real concerns will be found in the data compiled to calculate WalletHub's vice index.
Tennesseans, after all, know of their crime problems, their problems with smoking and overeating, and certainly the prevalent problem with illegal drugs and opioids. They know, too, that many of the problems are related to culture, poverty and a sense of worthiness.
The good news is if our fellow residents residing with some of these sins -- and we all have them -- recognize their hold, they may be on the way to eliminating them.