Folks in the nation’s capital are, according to a Gallup survey, the least actively engaged workers in America.

That could explain a lot.

At the same time, workers in the District of Columbia are not the most actively disengaged workers in the U.S. That distinction goes to four states. In fact, Washington, D.C. ranks very well in terms of workers who say they are “actively disengaged.”

There’s a Gallup trick to this engagement survey. It segments responses into three categories: engaged; not engaged; and actively disengaged. Gallup is most interested in the first and last categories.

The survey results were drawn from phone interviews with more than 166,000 U.S. adults during which respondents were asked a series of questions designed to offer insight into their level of engagement at work.

Gallup said Montanans are the most engaged workers in America by a 2 percentage margin over Mississippians, the next most engaged. Might not seem like a big spread, but within Gallup’s Top 10 engaged states, it was the largest difference between any two states.

It should be noted that the No. 1 state had just 39 percent of its workers reporting themselves as engaged. So while engagement is grim in Washington, D.C., it’s not exactly robust anywhere else.

Here’s the Top 10 states with the highest levels of employee engagement:

Montana (39 percent engaged)
Mississippi (37 percent)
Louisiana (36 percent)
Oklahoma (35 percent)
New Mexico (35 percent)
Arkansas (35 percent)
Texas (34 percent)
Florida (34 percent)
Alabama (33 percent)
Georgia (3 percent)

The bottom 10, as reported by Gallup, are not the 10 with the lowest levels of positively engaged workers. Rather, Gallup creates a separate ranking of “actively disengaged workers.”

So, for instance, Washington, D.C. ranks low in positive engagement, but also places well in the “actively disengaged” list, with just 15 percent reporting that level of disengagement there. Apparently District of Columbians have mastered a work process in which they detach themselves from the job to a certain degree — but then they go no further.

In any case, here are the states that Gallup says reported the highest level of workers who say they are “actively disengaged” in their work.

Connecticut (21 percent)
New York (21 percent)
Michigan (21 percent)
Kentucky (21 percent)
New Jersey (20 percent)
Delaware (20 percent)
Ohio (20 percent)
Pennsylvania (20 percent)
Nevada (19 percent)
Missouri (19 percent)

It may all come down to economic opportunity.

Says Gallup of the results: “States with higher active disengagement have significantly higher unemployment and underemployment rates than states with lower active disengagement. For example, the eight states with 20 percent or more actively disengaged workers averaged 8 percent unemployment and 18 percent underemployment. In contrast, the seven states with 15 percent or less actively disengaged workers averaged only 5 percent unemployment and 14 percent underemployment. Employees in states with higher active disengagement are also more likely to report that their company is letting people go (16 percent compared with 13 percent for those in states with 15 percent or fewer actively disengaged workers).”

Instant Insights /

Top 10 states with highest, lowest employee engagement

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