Georgia drops out of top 20 most sinful states

When it comes to sinfulness, it seems the state of Georgia is cleaning up its act.

Having ranked in the top 10 — and even the top five — the past few years, Georgia has fallen quite a few spots on WalletHub’s annual list of the nation’s most sinful states.

But what makes some states more sinful than others? Is it law? Culture?

“This is a question for which I do not think there is a unique answer and any approximation to a general answer will be in the realm of speculation,” Felipe A. Lozano-Rojas, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, told WalletHub. “I guess that an unstoppable curiosity and quest for happiness, or at least, satisfaction, leads individuals to bump into ‘sinful’ behavior. … I would say that sinful behavior should produce some reward and allegedly some cost. The reward is straightforward, but for the cost, I say allegedly, as sometimes sinful behavior is defined by law or social norms.”

To determine the most sinful states in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states across seven key dimensions: anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, greed, lust, vanity, and laziness.

It then examined those dimensions using 47 relevant metrics, each graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of sinfulness.

When the scores were tallied, Georgia finished near the middle of the pack at No. 22, with a score of 43.88.