U.S. News Ranks the Best States for 2025

The newest edition of the Best States rankings features an Iowa slide, a South Dakota rise and a three-peat at No. 1.

The best state in America is home to a diverse and resilient economy, smart students, low crime and a fairly healthy population.

You could also say Utah – No. 1 in the Best States rankings from U.S. News for a third straight year – has experienced a bit of a reputational renaissance in recent decades.

Twenty-five years ago, “Utah was probably known for three things: ‘Footloose,’ green Jell-O, and the third would be a very youthful workforce,” says Curtis Blair, president and CEO of the Provo-based Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce. “There’s a lot that has happened in Utah in the last 20 years where we have moved … to being an entrepreneurial, startup state.”

Utah’s economy has evolved to become one of the most diverse in the U.S., with industries like tech, tourism, health care and energy standing as major employers. And it's a safe bet that the state's pivot from more traditional roots in areas like manufacturing and agriculture – further fueled of late by the decision to invest in engineering, computer science and math education in the early 2000s – has helped drive Utah’s success in the U.S. News rankings, with its three-year streak of topping them unparalleled in the project’s history.

First launched in 2017, the Best States rankings assess the 50 states across eight categories: health care, education, natural environment, opportunity, economy, crime and corrections, infrastructure and fiscal stability. Among the 71 metrics within the analysis, Utah has the third-highest labor force participation rate at nearly 69%, the fourth-highest rate of gross domestic product growth at 4% and the fourth-highest rate of business creation. In each of the seven years U.S. News has published the Best States rankings, Utah has never placed outside the top 5 in the economy category.

The diversity of the state’s economy has made it better able to weather downturns, says Natalie Gochnour, director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. That could prove particularly crucial in the near future, as economists warn the country is at increased risk of a recession due to the Trump administration’s tariff-centered trade policies.

“Our economic structure is similar to the U.S., so when the U.S. suffers so do we,” Gochnour says. “But I will say that as a general rule, our lows are higher and our highs are higher – in the last two and a half decades, Utah’s economy has outperformed the nation, had greater strength, and when we’ve had downturns, we have been able to rebound much more quickly in our state.”

Outside the economic arena, Utah – a state with unique social and cultural underpinnings – posted the country’s lowest smoking rate at 6% and the 12th-lowest rate of violent crime, while its eighth-graders averaged the fourth-highest score in the country on standardized math tests. The state ranks within the top 10 in five Best States categories: fiscal stability, economy, infrastructure, education, and crime and corrections.

The Rest of the Best

The Beehive State is in familiar company at the top of the 2025 rankings, as the same states that made up the top 5 in 2024 did so again this year. New Hampshire captured the No. 2 spot for a second consecutive year, bolstered by a top ranking in the crime and corrections category and a No. 4 placement in natural environment. Idaho rose to No. 3 from No. 5 in 2025, switching places with Nebraska. Also for the second straight year, Minnesota maintained its spot in the rankings at No. 4.

Meanwhile, South Dakota entered the top 10 for the first time in 2025, moving up to No. 8 from No. 11 in 2024. Though year-over-year comparisons in the Best States rankings should be made with caution – particularly given potential methodology changes and that one state’s performance in an area could cause another to rise or fall without doing anything – South Dakota did see notable improvements in the infrastructure, education and fiscal stability categories.

Among other things, the state’s road quality improved to become second-best in the nation – and its preschool enrollment rate increased by about 14%.

One state – Iowa – slid out of the top 10, dropping from No. 6 in 2024 to No. 14. The state suffered most prominently in the natural environment category, where it saw a large increase in the number of days with poor air quality. But Iowa also fell in the more heavily weighted categories of economy and health care, with declines in metrics like GDP and job growth and a tick up in others such as infant mortality rate.

Across the 10 best states in America, three each were located in the West, Midwest and Northeast, while Florida was the lone state from the South to make the list.

These Are the 10 Best States in the U.S.

1. Utah

2. New Hampshire

3. Idaho

4. Minnesota

5. Nebraska

6. Florida

7. Vermont

8. South Dakota

9. Massachusetts

10. Washington

A common factor shared by many of the top-ranked states is a strong performance in the education category – the highest-weighted category of the 2025 rankings based on new survey results showing what areas Americans believe their states should prioritize, and which issues present the most pressing concerns. Five of the top 10 states overall also placed among the top 10 in education, while just one – Massachusetts – did the same in the category carrying the second-highest weight, health care.

The Back of the Pack

Even high-performing states don’t excel in every rankings category. Utah, for example, ranks near the bottom for environment (No. 48), burdened by poor scores for industrial toxins and pollution health risk. Florida – among the nation’s worst performers for housing affordability and income equality – ranks 47th for opportunity, and South Dakota ranks 46th for health care, weighed down in part by a U.S. News assessment of hospital quality in the state.

Yet similar to the top 10 states, there was little movement year over year among the poorest performers in the rankings, which were concentrated primarily in the South but also captured states in the West, Midwest and Northeast, as well as Alaska.

These Are the 10 Lowest-Ranked States in the U.S.

50. Louisiana

49. Alaska

48. Mississippi

47. New Mexico

46. West Virginia

45. Alabama

44. Arkansas

43. Michigan

42. Oklahoma

41. Pennsylvania

Louisiana again ranked last overall. The Bayou State ranked No. 50 in the crime and corrections and economy categories, respectively, while its highest category ranking came in health care at No. 44. Other states in the bottom 10 also ranked last in various categories, including Mississippi in health care, New Mexico in education and West Virginia in infrastructure.

At the same time, some were also among the nation’s better performers in certain areas: West Virginia, for example, was No. 8 in opportunity – thanks in part to its housing affordability and lower cost of living – and No. 19 in crime and corrections.

Pennsylvania – where only about 7% of adults 19 to 64 years old lacked health insurance – was No. 11 in health care, and Oklahoma was No. 19 in economy, due in part to a lower tax burden and relatively decent job growth.