2021’s Best States to Live in America

Sometimes a job transfer or even personal family matters can leave with only one choice when it com3es to picking a state to live in, but if your just thinking about packing up and moving there are factors that may determine your choice of location; job opportunities, education system, weather and cost of living are just a few.

With nearly 15 million people having moved last year, many of them influenced by COVID-19, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2021’s Best States to Live in.

To help Americans settle down in the best and most affordable place possible, they 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.

Best vs. Worst

• Vermont has the highest quality of the public hospital system, with 84.00 percent of patients giving their hospital a rating of 9 or 10, which is 1.5 times higher than in New Jersey, the state with the lowest at 56.67 percent.
• New Hampshire has the lowest share of residents living in poverty, 7.60 percent, which is 2.7 times lower than in Mississippi, the state with the highest at 20.30 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.
• Maine has the fewest violent crimes (per 1,000 residents), 1.15, which is 7.5 times less than in Alaska, the state with the most at 8.67.

WalletHub Q & A

Taking into consideration the challenges faced by some states during the pandemic, what steps should a person take to determine if an area is right for him/her to move to?’

“I think everybody has individual preferences for the degree of caution and protective health policies about COVID-19 that vary across states,” said Matthais Holezlein, University of Notre Dame. “More cautious people might consider living in states that maintain some of these policies and have high vaccination rates. In particular, the growth in vaccination rates has slowed down in some states due to the reluctance of some residents to get vaccinated. Such states might not be able to sustain sufficiently high vaccination levels to achieve herd immunity. Cautious people might want to avoid such states when considering moving.”

“On the other hand, states that have opened earlier might provide better opportunities to find a job in the recovering economy. An important factor in choosing a state is clearly whether a local job market is suited for an individual’s profile. For example, someone working in professions that can be easily done remotely might consider places with high quality of life and low housing costs where he/she can work for an employer in a potentially distant location. However, workers in professions that need direct personal interaction such as retail or hospitality might consider states that have lifted COVID-related restrictions and whose service sectors are recovering more quickly.”

How does our experience with the Covid-19 pandemic inform our decisions about where to locate?

“Different people respond differently,” said Malcolm Getz, Vanderbilt University.

“Older Americans will place more weight on access to sophisticated medical care and on the success of state supervision of congregate living facilities for seniors. Ninety-five percent of Covid-19 deaths occurred among people aged 50 and above. (CDC data as of October 29, 2020) Yet they accounted for only 35 percent of the cases. Many of the deaths among the aged were in congregate living facilities.”

“More generally, sophisticated medical services are an important advantage of living and working in a metropolitan area. Rural areas and smaller cities distant from large metro areas tend not to have at hand the depth of medical services that come to bear in a pandemic and for other medical conditions.”

What states will gain popularity after the pandemic?

“I believe people expecting big shifts in state-to-state migration patterns will be disappointed,” said Mark Partridge, PhD, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. “One thing that stands out in state-wide growth patterns since the 1960s is how persistent they are—i.e., states growing fast 50 years ago are likely growing fast today. For example, recall the Great Recession and housing bust were going to create major changes where people wanted to live including a shift away from high natural amenity places such as Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. Indeed, those states remained among the fastest growing in the 2010-2020 decade despite dire predictions.”

To view the full report and your city’s rank, please visit:

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617

Courtesy: WalletHub