Perhaps living in the seat of the federal government has one large advantage — how well people are paid. Since Maryland does well by the same measure, the benefits may spread miles beyond the U.S. capital.

According to a new poll from Gallup:

Washington, D.C., had the highest Payroll to Population (P2P) rate in the country in 2013, at 55.7%. A cluster of states in the Northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions — North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wyoming, Iowa, Colorado, and South Dakota — all made the top 10. West Virginia (36.1%) had the lowest P2P rate of all the states.

According to the research firm:

Gallup’s P2P metric tracks the percentage of the adult population aged 18 and older that is employed full time for an employer for at least 30 hours per week.

The good ratio in areas that include North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming may be due to the surge of the energy industry in the states, which is due, in large part, to share deposits. The balance of top 10 states for Payroll to Population includes Alaska — another energy-rich state.

At the other end of the spectrum are states that have been poor for decades, and one that has been most badly hurt by the gutting of the traditional American industrial base. In addition to West Virginia, Michigan is among the bottom 10 states in Payroll to Population, as are Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico, Florida, Oregon and Iowa.

The research firm ties the state lists of their Payroll to Population to underemployment rates:

Gallup’s U.S. underemployment rate combines the percentage of adults in the workforce that is unemployed with the percentage of those working part time but looking for full-time work. While P2P reflects the relative size of the population that is working full time for an employer, the underemployment rate reflects the relative size of the workforce that is not working at capacity, but would like to be.

Since the states that traditionally have had high underemployment rates since the start of the recession have not changed much, the list is unlikely to look much different in the future. In other words, states that have been unable to improve employment rates by meaningful amounts will be unable to do so as time passes.

Methodology: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking from Jan. 2 to Dec. 29, 2013, with a random sample of 356,586 adults, aged 18 and older, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

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