Dueling infrastructure top 10 lists

CNBC and 24/7 Wall St. recently released lists of the U.S. states whose infrastructure is in most need of investment and improvement, and while many of the same states make each list, some do not, and those that do, appear in different order.

Each news outlet used “government data” to create its list, but they differ in significant ways. For example, Alaska and Iowa are No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, on 24/7 Wall St.’s list, but neither makes the CNBC list. This is probably due to CNBC including water infrastructure need while 24/7 Wall St. left out this category. New Hampshire, for example, needs $1.9 billion in water infrastructure investment over 20 years, according to the CNBC list, but New Hampshire does not appear on the 24/7 Wall St. list. Each list does include percent of deficient bridges, average commute to work and road conditions.

The need for infrastructure investment affects each state in several ways, from income lost to high commute times and potholes, to businesses running less efficiently.

“Today every American family is losing about $3,400 a year in disposable income due to poor infrastructure,” Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, is quoted as saying in the CBNC report. “He is talking about auto repairs, gasoline for the time you spend stuck in traffic, bottled water during an outage — the list goes on,” CNBC continues.