Rating South Carolina: Pensions, Elections, & Roads. Oh my!
At Palmetto Promise Institute, we are big on ratings and rankings. If done properly, a grade or score in a policy area can help a state know where it stands on freedom issues and how efficiently and effectively that state spends taxpayer dollars. Comparisons to neighboring states can be particularly useful.
Trusted national organizations produce this type of research, and we occasionally produce reports of our own that compare South Carolina to our border states or compare South Carolina counties with one another. We usually use North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida as yardsticks. Several years ago, we published Fiscal Facts, and it is still a handy reference booklet for cold hard numbers. (Look for an updated Fiscal Facts coming soon!).
Two outstanding scorecards were released earlier this year, one on federalism and another on economic freedom. The federalism analysis was published by the State Policy Network (SPN), of which we are an affiliate member. The economic freedom study was published by the trusted Fraser Institute. These studies’ findings for South Carolina are summarized in an earlier post. (Spoiler: we are #4 in the United States in protecting federalism and resisting the administrative regulatory state and #3 in economic freedom in the whole of North America.)
Now there are three more brand new (2025) rankings worth your attention. We might even call them essential.
State Retirement/Pensions (ESG)
Remember ESG? Palmetto Promise wrote extensively on the dangers of ESG and made getting rid of it a part of our Legislative Agenda for the last session of the South Carolina General Assembly (2023-24).
A new analysis from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (founded by Steve Moore) shows that South Carolina’s actions to require the state’s pension fund to focus on financial return for retirees and other pecuniary goals rather than political agendas like environmentalism, and social engineering put us in good company. The Committee rated South Carolina a B with a score of 8.8 of 10. That put us at #5 in the country. Only Wyoming achieved a perfect 10, followed. by Utah, Delaware, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Election Integrity
The Heritage Foundation just released a new report on state laws related to election integrity. You may remember that when election law reform got up to bat in the General Assembly in 2021, Palmetto Promise provided extensive recommendations on what to do. The legislature adopted nearly all of our suggestions.
Maybe that’s why across 14 categories South Carolina was at 81, losing less than 20 points from a perfect score of 100. We have a few quibbles. Florida and Georgia tied for 3rd with an 83—and Florida & Georgia have ballot drop boxes, which we ban. South Carolina was also dinged two points for failure to require citizenship for voting, but the state amended the constitution in the 2024 general election to require citizenship. Palmetto State election officials are also using a new tool for verifying citizenship. Restoring those two points would move us from #8 to a tie for #3!
Roads & Bridges
If you absolutely hate South Carolina roads, this report may be “triggering” to you. But stay tuned, the results are mixed.
According to the Reason Foundation, a solid respected libertarian-leaning think tank, South Carolina is #2 in the nation across 13 measures of quality and cost-effectiveness of road infrastructure and administrative spending (remember, Reason is foremost libertarian so efficiency is important in their ranking).
That’s up from #6 in the last study and up from a dismal #23 in 2019. South Carolina has undergone the most dramatic improvement in the nation over that time.
But this ranking highlights two glaring problems too: highway deaths and rural interstate and secondary road conditions. The Palmetto State is careful in our spending per mile, says Reason, and the general pavement condition is good near urban areas, but we lead the nation in fatalities and rural roads continue to be behind in repairs and resurfacing. Perhaps alcohol is a factor in fatalities?
A special legislative committee has been established to study the roads issue this summer, and we will release a new roads report soon.
All is not rosy in state-by-state rankings for South Carolina. But these three, merged with two former reports, show there are bright spots.
Next up, rankings for education, taxes and healthcare. Oh my!
