With around 8.4 percent of Americans having moved last year, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its 2022 “Best States to Live In” report. To help Americans settle down in the best and most affordable places possible, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 52 key indicators of livability.
They range from housing costs and income growth to education rate and quality of hospitals.
The top 20 states, according to WalletHub, were Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Idaho, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Vermont, Utah, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Montana and Colorado.
The best versus worst takeaways from the survey were:
- Maine has the fewest violent crimes (per 1,000 residents), 1.09, which is 7.7 times less than in Alaska, the state with the most at 8.38.
- New Hampshire has the lowest share of residents living in poverty, 7.40 percent, which is 2.6 times lower than in Mississippi, the state with the highest at 19.60 percent.
- South Dakota has the shortest average commute time, 17 minutes, which is two times shorter than in New York, the state with the longest at 34 minutes.