A new ranking confirms what Illinois residents already knew – the state is a solid place to live.
WalletHub, a personal finance company, compared all 50 states to create a ranking of the best states to live in. Analysts considered affordability, the economy, education and health, quality of life and safety when creating the list.
Overall, Illinois ranked at number 16 out of the 50 states.
Other nearby states have some higher and lower rankings than Illinois: Indiana (27), Wisconsin (8), Missouri (31) and Iowa (12). And of the 12 states that make up the Midwest region, Illinois comes in fourth place for best state to live in.
How did Illinois score?
The analysis ranked states based on the most important factors for a good life. Each state was also given a separate ranking out of 50 for each category.
Here are Illinois’s rankings by category:
- Affordability rank: 37
- Economy rank: 49
- Education and health rank: 22
- Quality of life rank: 5
- Safety rank: 6
Illinois was ranked near the top for both quality of life and safety. However, the state’s economy was nearly the worst in the country.
The analysis also included rankings for individual categories like homeownership rates and housing costs. In those individual categories, Illinois scored in the top five for number of restaurants per capita.
Top five states to live in
Massachusetts took the top spot in the WalletHub rankings for the best state to live in. The state’s excellent health care systems and education pushed it to the front of the pack.
- Massachusetts
- Florida
- New Jersey
- Utah
- New Hampshire
States on the east coast took home four of the top five spots–Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Florida are all highly ranked on the list of the best states to live in.
How the rankings were decided
The five key factors–affordability, the economy, education and health, quality of life and safety–were broken down using 51 metrics which were then weighed based on how important they were to livability.
For example, in the quality of life category, WalletHub compared data on hours worked per week, commute time, miles of trails for biking and walking, museums per capita, weather, access to public transportation and more.
The data come from a range of sources. Some of the metrics come from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while other information was gleaned from organizations like The League of American Bicyclists.
For a full breakdown of the process used to create the rankings, visit WalletHub’s methodology section.
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