Financial website Money-Rates.com has ranked the states, determining which are the easiest and most difficult in which to make a living. The results are far from surprising, and show that freedom is key to prosperity.

The easiest states in which to make a living are, in order, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. All three of these states are notable in that they have no income tax as, clearly, it is easier to make a living when one is able to keep everything one earns. Texas came in first by also adding an expanding GDP and a low cost of living. Washington has less economic freedom than Texas, but their lack of income tax and and higher average wage makes up for it, putting them in second place. For Washington, the lack of income tax is key for being on the list. Wyoming also makes the list despite having an average wage below the national average because of increased economic freedom. This includes their having no income tax, but they also have a low cost of living and low unemployment.

At the other end of the spectrum are the five states whose governments make it most difficult to make a living. These are, in order, Hawaii, Oregon, Maine, West Virginia and Vermont. Of these, all but Oregon are among the states ranked worst in overall economic freedom. In that index, Oregon is in the middle of the national pack at 25, but Hawaii comes in at 47 out of the 50 states, Maine at 43rd, West Virginia 45th, and Vermont 46th. That’s right, four of the five states where it is most difficult to make a living also rank at the bottom in economic freedom.

How business-friendly a state is also factors into how easy it is to make a living in that state. In a ranking of the best states in which to do business, Texas ranks 2nd, Washington 8th and Wyoming 18th. Rounding out the top five easiest states to make a living in are are Virginia (12th for business friendliness) and Illinois (19th for business friendliness).

The states where it is more difficult to make a living are significantly less hospitable to business. Hawaii, for instance, is dead last for business friendliness, Maine 44th, West Virginia 49th and Vermont 41st. Business is frequently painted as a Big Bad Wolf, but these numbers strongly suggest that where businesses have a relatively high degree of freedom, the citizens find it easier to prosper.

None of this is coincidental, and none of it should be a surprise. When a state is economically free and attractive to businesses, the people will have fewer hurdles to making a good living. When the government steps back and allows people to prosper, they do. Protests to the contrary that evoke evil corporations dumping poisonous sludge into rivers make good anti-corporate propaganda, but they miss the point. Economic freedom isn’t anarchy, and the unfettered poisoning of public goods should be on no one’s agenda for a better society. But reasonable and effective laws against negative externalities like littering and pollution are a world apart from the suffocating regulatory state that businesses face in the states least friendly to business. Those states are hurting the common man by making business the bad guy.

Read more about the best and worst states in which to make a living here.