According to the U.S. News & World Report “best state” rankings, Virginia came in 13th and Maryland was 22nd.
Researchers at U.S. News & World Report have for years ranked states in categories such as health care, safety and more.
For 2024, they combined a long list of factors to pick the best states overall — and Virginia and Maryland did not make it in the Top 10.
According to the rankings, Virginia came in 13th and Maryland was 22nd. D.C., not being a state, wasn’t ranked.
“Virginia is slightly out of the top 10, but it’s still a very good performance,” said Gary Emerling, the managing editor for government rankings at U.S. News & World Report.
The rankings evaluated all 50 states across a range of categories, including health care, education, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, crime and natural environment.
Virginia ranked 10th in education, 11th in crime, 15th in health care and 16th on the economy.
“Across the board, it’s a pretty strong performance for the most part,” Emerling said.
While Maryland fell behind a bit, “it did rank highly in natural environment,” Emerling said.
That’s a category where researchers looked into air and water quality and pollution levels. Maryland ranked 6th in that category and 7th in health care.
More weight was awarded to some categories than others, based on surveys of what matters most to residents.
For example, in education, Virginia outperformed Maryland significantly — 10th place compared to 20th place.
“That’s our second-highest weighted category, so that probably helped Virginia,” Emerling said. “It just really varies a lot depending on how other states are doing.”
The rankings were compiled through a combination of public and private data.
You can see the whole list, along with analysis and the methodology, at U.S. News and World Report.
For the second year in a row, Utah came in first place overall on the list, receiving the title of “best state.” Utah finished 2nd in education, 3rd in the economy and 3rd in infrastructure.
“They’re just a really consistent performer across our categories,” said Emerling. “They are in the Top 20 for seven out of eight categories.”
The rest of the top five states included New Hampshire, Nebraska, Minnesota and Idaho.
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