re: #416 Higgs Boson’s Mate

I don’t think the reality on the ground in Texas is as bad as the politics. look at how these numbers were put together.

Texas’ totals are high, Pegula said, “because it’s a very large state.” Texas, California, Florida and New York have some of the largest labor forces in the U.S.

Seeking a way to account for that, we took each state’s 2011 raw numbers of deaths in the four categories Marston tabbed, added them together, then divided by the average number of workers employed in the state in 2011 per the federal bureau.

Texas ranked 18th, with a rate of 1.7 such deaths per 100,000 workers. Observing that the five states with the “worst” rates all employed fewer than 1 million people in 2011, we checked to see how Texas fared among states employing more than 1 million. The answer: 10th place.

“Worst” among all 50 states were Montana (3.4 deaths per 100,000 workers), North Dakota (3.3), West Virginia (3), Alaska (3) and New Mexico (2.8). “Worst” among states with more than 1 million employed were Arkansas (2.6), Louisiana (2.3), Kansas (2.3), Missouri (2.1) and Kentucky (2).