The Koch family-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University has released their "Freedom in the 50 States" report [1].

According to them, the freest state is North Dakota, followed by South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, the least free state is New York, followed by California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Rhode Island.

It's worth pointing out that four of the five most free states (all but NH) are subsidized by three of the least free states (NJ, CA, and NY) [2].

Unless you happen to live in a "free" state and you like it, you might at this point be thinking that there's a big cost to what the Kochs define as "freedom". Most people would rather live in California or New York than the Dakotas. My personal opinion of Tennessee is pretty low, but YMMV. My opinion is that the middling-on-the-freedom scale Vermont is far better than New Hampshire and that Maine is even better than Vermont. It's all a matter of personal taste: North Dakota, or Hawaii. The Koch sphere has made its choice, you make yours.

Here's their chart of the U.S., click for a larger version:

-------------------
[1] freedominthe50states . org/overall
[2] realestyearever.tumblr . com/image/6910963568