Maryland Ranks High on Best States to Live List

Maryland residents like to complain about the taxes they pay. But will anyone dispute the state's top 10 ranking as one of the best states to live in?

The website 24/7 Wall St. compiled its ranking of the 50 states based on three socioeconomic measures for each state: poverty rate, the percentage of adults who have at least a bachelor’s degree, and life expectancy at birth. And those metrics gave Maryland the No. 8 spot on the list released Tuesday.

Here's what the website says about Maryland:

• 10-yr. population growth: 10.0% (23rd lowest)
  
• Oct. unemployment rate: 4.2% (17th lowest)
  
• Poverty rate: 9.7% (2nd lowest)
  
• Life expectancy at birth: 78.5 years (25th lowest)

A college education can lead to more opportunities, higher incomes, and better overall quality of life. In Maryland, nearly 39% of adults have earned a bachelor’s degree, one of the highest shares of any state. As is typically the case in regions with high educational attainment, incomes are high in Maryland. The statewide median household income of $75,847 a year is the highest in the country. High incomes partially explain the state’s 9.7% poverty rate, which is nearly the lowest of any state.

College-educated adults are often better equipped to make healthier lifestyle decisions and as a result typically have longer lifespans. Despite Maryland’s near nation-leading bachelor’s degree attainment rate, life expectancy at birth in the state is 78.5 years, exactly the same as the average life expectancy nationwide.

The rest of the top 10: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Jersey, Colorado, Vermont, Hawaii, and Virginia.

»How would you rank Maryland as a place to live? Tell us in comments below.

Americans often evaluate their home states according to such subjective conditions as climate preference, the presence of friends and family, and personal history, say the writers at 24/7 Wall St. In addition to these subjective measures, more objective socioeconomic factors also contribute to life satisfaction. It is such quantitative measures that can help assess the broader quality of life in a given state.

The website reviewed three statewide social and economic measures — poverty rate, educational attainment, and life expectancy at birth — to rank each state’s living conditions. Socioeconomic outcomes vary greatly between states.

The average cost of goods and services in most of the best states to live is greater than the national average, while the average cost of living in all of the 25 states on the lower end of our list is less than the national average.

The selection of these three measures was inspired by the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Poverty rates and bachelor attainment rates came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey. Life expectancies at birth are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are as of 2012, latest year for which data is available. Unemployment rates are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and are for October 2016, the most recent available month of data.

»Patch file photo