Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on Twitter (X) yesterday,
Minnesota just ranked in the top 5 best states to live.
How can this possibly be true? Based on what? So, I had to look this up. It turns out that Walz is referring to the Best States ranking by U.S. News & World Report.
Indeed, Minnesota ranks #4 behind Utah, New Hampshire, and Idaho, and just ahead of Nebraska, and Florida.
States are ranked in eight categories to produce an overall score. Curiously, Minnesota is alone among the top nine states in not ranking in the top five in any individual category. Their best showing is No. 7 in a category called “opportunity,” which is particularly odd given the ongoing mass exodus from the state.
No. 6 Florida, by contrast, ranks No. 1 in Economy and No. 2 in Education. They fall out of the top 5, overall, based on their No. 47 standing in “opportunity.”
Looking within the “opportunity” subcategory, the bottom 4 are, in order: Florida, Texas, New York, and California. I get New York and California, the two states losing the most population. But Florida and Texas are the two states gaining the most population.
So how does U.S. News define “opportunity”? They look at three measures, with measures within those measures. Within the “opportunity” sub-sub categories, the Sunshine State scores worst (#44) on “housing affordability.” In all of the subcategories and sub-subcategories, Florida does not score as low in any as it ranks overall in the Opportunity category. Perhaps I just don’t understand how math works.
Maybe I missed it, but in all my searching of U.S. News I can’t find where “weather” or “income tax rates” factor into the rankings. Which would explain how you end up with a top five list of northern-tier states that impose income taxes.
