We have all heard the term "American Dream", and for the most part, I think we can all agree that it will mean different things to different people. Merriam-Webster defines the American Dream as... "a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S."

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OK, so for the sake of argument, let's just say that the "American Dream" is basically to live happily inside the borders of the United States of America. Now, we really love analytics in this building, so what kind of metrics factor into making a certain part of the country better than the other to achieve "happiness?"

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According to The American Dream Prosperity Index, which is produced by the Legatum Institute along with the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream (MCAAD), the factors include safety and security, personal freedom, governance, and social capital, business environment, infrastructure, etc. They put all the information they can gather from all of their information-gathering places into the "bat-computer" and it spits out where all the states rank and Connecticut is not bad at all.

photo by Elaine Brewer on Unsplash
photo by Elaine Brewer on Unsplash
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According to the report by Legatum, which has been in continuous publication since it began in 2007, Connecticut is 2nd with an Overall Prosperity of 66.6, ouch, the number is a little ominous, but number 2 is not too bad at all. The categories where Connecticut scored the highest were Natural Environment, Health, Living Conditions, Education, and Personal Freedom, one of my favorites. The nutmeg state struggles a tad with Economic Quality, Infrastructure, Business Environment, and Social Capital.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
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The report is in-depth and breaks down each category into several sub-categories. Some other states here in the Northeast rank like this: Massachusetts (1), New Jersey (12), New York (14), Maine (16), Rhode Island (18), Delaware (20),  and Pennsylvania (22). My home state of Kansas come in at number 30, and Florida "you say", was number 31. What do you think? Is Connecticut the perfect place to achieve the "American Dream?"

One more thing, there was no way I was going to do this article WITHOUT a reference to the REAL American Dream!... We all know who I am talking about!

Wiki/Public Domain
Wiki/Public Domain
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Connecticut vs The World

I love those "The rest of the world____ , Nobody-" memes. They show that someone was thinking differently, or independently from the rest of the world. Who has done that in Connecticut over the years? Here's a few examples:

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