Methodology

For the rankings, WalletHub compared all 50 U.S. states on 51 metrics of livability across five key dimensions:

• Affordability, which includes housing affordability, median annual property tax, and cost of living
• Economy, which includes unemployment rate, income growth, population growth, and wealth gap
• Education and health, which includes high school graduation rate, share of insured population, quality of public hospital system, and percentage of the population in poor or fair health
• Quality of life, which includes the average hours worked per week, the average commute time, and air quality
• Safety, which includes violent crime rate, property crime rate, and total law enforcement employees per capita

Each metric was scored on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 being the most favorable living conditions. Each state's weighted average across all metrics was used to calculate their total score, which determined their overall ranking.

The best (and worst) states to live in

According to WalletHub, the 10 best states to live in are:

1. Idaho (Score: 60.15)
2. New Jersey (Score: 59.41)
3. Wisconsin (Score: 59.32)
4. Massachusetts (Score: 59.28)
5. New Hampshire (Score: 58.89)
6. Wyoming (Score: 58.71)
7. Utah (Score: 58.63)
8. Minnesota (Score: 57.94)
9. Pennsylvania (Score: 57.71)
10. Florida (Score: 57.48)

WalletHub also ranked each state based on its score in each of the five key dimensions:

• Affordability: West Virginia ranked first while California ranked last.
• Economy: Vermont ranked first while Louisiana ranked last.
• Education and Health: Massachusetts ranked first while Mississippi ranked last.
• Quality of life: New York ranked first while Alaska ranked last.
• Safety: New Jersey ranked first while Washington ranked last.

In addition, WalletHub ranked all 50 states on specific metrics and found that:

• Iowa had the lowest housing costs while California had the highest.
• New Hampshire had the lowest percentage of people living in poverty while both Louisiana and Mississippi had the highest.
• Idaho had the highest income growth and Wyoming had the lowest.
• Massachusetts had the highest percentage of an insured population while Texas had the lowest.
• Utah had the lowest average weekly work hours while Alaska had the highest.
• New Hampshire had the lowest crime rate while New Mexico had the highest.