In the very least you'd have to adjust for purchasing power parity and look at the median rather than the mean, to say anything useful about quality of life for normal people.
Yes, I agree. GDP is a very rough measure. I'd prefer PPP, but I couldn't find it for individual states after a cursory search. (I still think most readers will be surprised by Alabama's GDP, relative to wealthy European nations, so it's not totally useless.)
