Best States: Frequently Asked Questions
Here’s a guide to understanding the Best States rankings.
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What is Best States?
Best States is a unique rankings and news analysis platform designed to inform citizens, business leaders and policymakers alike about what's working and what needs improvement across the country.
The site includes rankings that measure the 50 states overall and across eight different categories: health care, education, economy, opportunity, infrastructure, crime & corrections, fiscal stability and natural environment. The rankings are derived from 71 metrics and thousands of data points.
In addition to rankings, the platform offers expert commentary, news analysis and storytelling to highlight the issues, insights and best practices that matter most for states.
Why rank states?
U.S. News & World Report created the Best States rankings to provide a platform for citizens, government leaders and business executives alike to compare and better understand the issues, insights and best practices that matter most for states.
Like U.S. News' Best Countries franchise, launched in 2016, and the Healthiest Communities platform, launched in 2018, Best States gives readers a new way to analyze the world around them. It shows which state policies are working and which can be improved, and encourages citizens to interact more with their governments to promote positive change.
How is this different from existing state rankings?
Existing state rankings tend to focus on a very narrow set of issues, such as the business or tax environment of a state or the education and health care offered there.
U.S. News Best States is the first comprehensive effort to gauge how states perform across a wide array of issues. This project provides citizens with a full picture of state performance.
How were the states ranked?
The overall Best States ranking is determined by each of the 50 U.S. states' rankings in eight main categories: health care, education, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, , crime & corrections and natural environment.The rankings are based on thousands of data points gathered by U.S. News, largely from government and publicly-available sources.
The categories and subcategories used in the ranking were:
Health Care
- Health Care Access
- Health Care Quality
- Public Health
Education
- Higher Education
- Pre-K - 12
Economy
- Business Environment
- Employment
- Growth
Infrastructure
- Energy
- Internet Access
- Transportation
Opportunity
- Affordability
- Economic Opportunity
- Equality
Fiscal Stability
- Long-term
- Short-term
Crime & Corrections
- Corrections
- Public Safety
Natural Environment
- Air and Water Quality
- Pollution
What were the respective weights of the inputs and why were they chosen?
The overall Best States ranking is determined from how each of the 50 U.S. states ranks in our eight categories. The weights of the categories are as follows:
- Health Care: 16%
- Education: 15.8%
- Economy: 13.8%
- Infrastructure: 12.9%
- Opportunity: 12.7%
- Fiscal Stability: 10.5%
- Crime & Corrections: 9.9%
- Natural Environment: 8.4%
The weights of the category rankings are determined by an annual online survey of thousands of people across the country. The survey was meant to determine which factors are the most important to people about their state. For more on the survey, weighting and inputs, including for subcategories, see the Best States methodology.
Why did my state perform so well?
Each state's performance in the overall ranking correlates directly with its ranking in each of the eight categories, including health care, education, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, crime & corrections and natural environment. The overall ranking takes a holistic view of all of these category rankings to determine which states are best for their citizens in all aspects. If a state performed well in several categories, especially those weighted more heavily, it is likely to rank highly overall.
Why did my state perform so poorly?
Each state's overall ranking relies on its performance in all eight categories. Since these categories are not weighted equally, a state could rank highly in one or more categories but not overall. For example, if a state ranks near the top for natural environment weighted at 8.4%, it could still perform poorly overall if it ranks near the bottom for health care and education, the most highly weighted categories. Also, state rankings are relative; a low ranking doesn't necessarily mean a state is failing, but that other states outperformed it in that category or metric.
Why did my state's rank change?
U.S. News is committed to building the most comprehensive analysis of all 50 states and, to that end, is continually assessing the data used in the rankings and the methods used to evaluate them. Feedback from industry experts, government officials and state residents alike informed a methodology review process that resulted in a number of changes. The 2019 Best States rankings should therefore be viewed independently from prior years' rankings.
That said, there are two main reasons why state rankings may have shifted between the 2018 Best States rankings and the 2019 Best States rankings:
- Updates based on most recent performance: Dozens of metrics were updated to reflect the most recent state data available, which in turn shifted state scores in many cases. For example, the high school graduation rate in Florida improved from 77.9% for the 2015 cohort to 80.7% for the 2016 cohort. This, in some part, helped the state improve its standing in the education category and its overall Best States ranking.
- Streamlining of metrics: To measure state performance in a way that best aligns with the U.S. News mission to inform consumers and decision-makers about the happenings in their states, some metrics were removed from the Best States framework. These include measures of recidivism and sexual violence in prisons in the Crime & Corrections category, preschool quality in the Education category and three measures of social environment. The social environment metrics previously accounted for half of what was a Quality of Life category, which has shifted into a Natural Environment category. Additionally, data from U.S. News' own Best Hospitals rankings replaced measures of hospital quality and nursing home quality that were previously from different sources.
Are the rankings objective and fair?
To ensure that the Best States rankings are objective and fair, U.S. News weighted the eight major categories based on results from representative surveys designed to determine what factors Americans believe their home states should prioritize each year.
Within each category, the metrics were selected objectively in collaboration with experts, using specific criteria. Among these considerations were the comprehensiveness, reliability and timeliness of the metrics. The project used publicly available government data when possible and vetted proprietary data in cases where public data was not available.
Why wasn't Washington, D.C., included in the rankings?
For this ranking, U.S. News looked at the 50 states and didn't include D.C. or U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico. One reason was data availability, as many state sets do not include these locations. Values for D.C. are often skewed because of its smaller population, making meaningful comparisons between D.C. and other states difficult. However, D.C. was included in national averages for each metric.
How often will the rankings be updated?
The Best States rankings will be updated each year.
Is the data used for the rankings reliable?
The rankings are primarily based on publicly available data from government sites. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How recent is the data?
U.S. News used the most recent data available as of February 2019. Not all data sets were released at the same time, since they are created throughout the year.
Are there any ties?
Ties were rare in the data set because we calculated scores to the maximum amount of decimal places without rounding. In some cases, such as government credit rating where the score was from a letter grade, ties were possible.
How were culture and history factored into the rankings?
The Best States rankings concentrate on measurable citizen outcomes and factors that a government can influence with policy. Because of this, we didn't include factors such as culture or history of the state.
Who can I contact with questions?
For questions about Best States, please email pr@usnews.com.