Residents in three states -- Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah -- essentially tie as the most confident in the U.S. economy, based on their scores on Gallup's Economic Confidence Index throughout 2017. In contrast, Vermont residents were least confident.
Several bottom-ranking states this past year -- including California, Hawaii, Maryland and Rhode Island -- ranked among the top states in 2016 but were surpassed by most other states because their Confidence scores did not improve in 2017.
Massachusetts was the only other state that did not show gains in Economic confidence last year, and it finished just outside the bottom 10 after ranking first overall in 2016 with an identical score of +2.
On average, economic confidence improved by 20 points in each state.
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