Best States: Frequently Asked Questions

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 seven different categories: education, health care, government, infrastructure, economy, opportunity and crime & corrections. The rankings are derived from more than 60 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 Best Countries, launched last year, 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 state governments perform across a wide array of issues. This project provides citizens with a full picture of state government performance.

What role did each partner play in producing Best Sates?

U.S. News & World Report, a global authority on rankings, news analysis and consumer advice, provides the journalistic, data and rankings expertise for the Best States project. U.S. News developed the rankings, hosts the website, and maintains editorial control of the content.

McKinsey & Company, with deep experience working with state government leaders on many of their most pressing issues, serves as the analytical engine for the project. McKinsey produced its Leading States Index in order to help state government leaders better understand where to focus their efforts, make lasting improvements in their performance and deliver on their mission to citizens. McKinsey also ran a nationwide survey on citizen satisfaction that included more than 10,000 responses measuring citizen satisfaction with government services, which was used to calculate the weightings behind the Best States rankings.

How were the states ranked?

The overall Best States ranking is determined from how each of the 50 U.S. states ranks in seven main categories: health care, education, infrastructure, crime & corrections, opportunity, economy and government. The rankings are based on thousands of data points gathered by McKinsey in its Leading States Index.

The categories and subcategories considered were:

Health Care

• Health Care Access
• Health Care Quality
• Public Health

Education

• Higher Education
• Pre-K - 12

Infrastructure

• Energy
• Internet Access
• Transportation

Crime & Corrections

• Corrections
• Public Safety

Opportunity

• Economic Opportunity
• Equality
• Affordability

Economy

• Growth
• Employment
• Business Environment

Government

• Fiscal Stability
• Budget Transparency
• Government Digitalization
• State Integrity

Certain categories were weighted more heavily than others. For more information on category weights, please see the Best States methodology.

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 seven categories. The weights of the categories are as follows:

• Health Care: 18 percent
• Education: 16 percent
• Infrastructure: 14 percent
• Crime & Corrections: 14 percent
• Opportunity: 14 percent
• Economy: 13 percent
• Government: 10 percent

Note: these weights do not equal 100 due to rounding.

In order to determine the weights of the category rankings, McKinsey & Company conducted an online survey of 11,100 people. 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, please click here.

Why did my state perform so well?

Each state’s performance in the overall ranking correlates directly with its ranking in each of the seven categories, including health care, education, infrastructure, crime & corrections, opportunity, economy and government. The overall ranking takes a holistic view of all of these category rankings to determine which states best serve 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 seven 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 government, weighted at 10 percent, it could still perform poorly overall if it ranks near the bottom for health care and education, the most highly weighted categories.

Are the rankings objective and fair?

To ensure that the Best States rankings are objective and fair, U.S. News weighted the seven major categories based on results from a representative survey designed to determine what factors most influence Americans’ satisfaction with their home states.

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.

Further, experts helped determine the weights of the subcategories and the metrics within them, focusing on which were most important and representative of their respective categories.

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 small population, making meaningful comparisons between D.C. and other states difficult. D.C. was included in national averages for each metric though.

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 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 and McKinsey used the most recent data available as of Dec. 22, 2016. 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 dataset because we calculated scores to the maximum amount of decimal places without rounding. In some cases, where the score was from a letter grade, ties were possible. There were ties in the government category, including in the state integrity ranking.

How was culture/history factored into the rankings?

The Best States rankings concentrate on factors that a government can influence with policy. Because of this, we didn’t include factors such as culture or history of the state. Those factors are considered in some of our other rankings such as Best Places to Live and Best Places to Travel.

Who can I contact with questions?

For questions about Best States, please email: pr@usnews.com.