Maine Listed as One of the Least Diverse States, Surprising Literally Nobody

The latest diversity report has come out, and it's not pretty for Maine and northern New England.

Wallethub.com, a personal finance website, recently published its annual report of the most and least diverse states.

Maine came in as the 49th most diverse state, just sneaking by last place, West Virginia (go Mountaineers!). However, this means Maine is the second least diverse state in America...not ideal.

Maine's actual score was 59.12. The scoring is on a 100 point system and based on six major categories: Socio-economic Diversity, Economic Diversity, Cultural Diversity, Religious Diversity, Political Diversity, and Household Diversity. These categories were broken down into subcategories to make it as detailed as possible. You can read more about the methodology here.

Maine's highest ranking was in household diversity. The state finished with a 22nd ranking. The lowest ranking was in religious diversity, finishing dead last. Maine also finished with a 50 ranking in the racial and ethnic diversity subcategory. This is not surprising, considering Maine tends to be very high in the whitest state rankings annually.

While the ranking is low, diversity in the state has technically increased. According to usafacts.org, Maine is more diverse than it was a decade ago. Maine's non-white population has grown by 2% since 2010. However, it still has a long way to go to move away from the bottom of reports such as this one.

Maine has a few neighbors in the bottom-5 of the list. New Hampshire (47) and Vermont (48) are also lagging well behind the rest of the country. Quite a triumvirate in the northeast.

According to WalletHub, the most diverse states listed are California, Texas, Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York. The highest ranked New England state is Connecticut, which comes in at 14. Good for them, considering nobody really likes living in Connecticut.