How Minnesota changed under Dayton's watch, in 58 charts

As Mark Dayton nears the end of his tenure as governor, one thing is certain: A lot has happened across Minnesota in the past eight years. The job market recovered from a deep recession, but many Minnesotans continue to struggle. The cost of college tuition crept ever higher, while crime rates fell. The number of breweries exploded.

To be sure, the governor can’t take all the credit (or blame) for everything that happens in the state. But as a new administration prepares to take the reins, we dug into the data across a wide range of topics to examine the state of the state incoming Gov. Tim Walz is inheriting from his predecessor. Where possible, we included data from previous administrations to see the long term trends as well.

Click the title of a chart below to expand it. Percent change figures are subject to rounding and not all metrics may be directly comparable with each other. For raw numbers, percent change is measured from 2011 when Dayton took office to the most recent available year. For rates and percentages, percentage point difference between those years are shown.