• We have added a link to a useful, independent website that allows you to create personalized freedom rankings from our data by moving sliders to weight the policies differently.

• We have been informed of an error in coding Michigan’s minimum wage law as of year-end 2006. That error has now been corrected in the labor laws spreadsheet and in the updated “state freedom index” spreadsheet. (Michigan falls from #1 to #2 on Regulatory Policy with the change.)

• Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom released (download PDF)

• Updated PDF codebook
• Added information and data for the publication Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom (Washington, D.C.: Mercatus Center at George Mason University)

• Updated fiscal data (through 2006), with new variables
• New calculation of “corrected GSP” and tax and spending ratios
• Updated law enforcement data (through 2006), with new variables
• Corrected small errors in the education regulations data
• Corrected small errors in the gun control data
• Recalculated state policy ideology variables

Read about the fiscal policy changes here.