New Hampshire No. 2 State in the Country: U.S. World and News Report

What is the best state in the country? According to a new series of rankings released by U.S. News and World Report, that title actually belongs to Massachusetts. But second-place New Hampshire is this close.

The inaugural rankings were compiled by evaluating all 50 states across a range of criteria from education and healthcare to infrastructure and the economy. The rankings were developed using McKinsey and Company’s “Leading States Index,” which combines thousands of data points across 68 specific metrics.

After Massachusetts and New Hampshire top five is rounded out by Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington.

The 68 metrics in the “Leading States Index” were separated into 20 groups, which were further arranged into the following seven categories:

Health Care; Education; Infrastructure; Crime and Corrections; Opportunity; Economy; Government.

All categories were weighted based on a national survey that asked people to prioritize seven categories in their state, such as education, crime and others in the order of most important and least important. Health care and education received the highest weightings nationwide - and were the two best showings for the Bay State.

In the seven categories, New Hampshire is No. 1 in opportunity, Massachusetts is No. 1 in education, Hawaii is No. 1 in health care, Oregon is No. 1 in infrastructure, Vermont is No. 1 in crime and corrections, Colorado is No. 1 in economy and Indiana ranks No. 1 for government.

So how did New Hampshire finish second overall? Here’s how the Granite State ranked across all seven categories:

Health Care: 4
Education: 3
Infrastructure: 13
Crime and Corrections: 12
Opportunity: 1
Economy: 13
Government: 30

Click here for a deeper breakdown into each category.

Gov. Chris Sununu, R-NH, in a press statement on Feb. 28, 2017, commented on positive findings stating that even though it was good news, the state still had a lot of work to do.

“New Hampshire is among the best states in the nation to live, work and raise a family,” said Governor Chris Sununu. “Though we have much work to do to ensure that our state continues to grow and thrive, this announcement is something that Granite Staters can be particularly proud of today. It will also serve as useful information to those considering moving their home or business to New Hampshire.”

How did the state rank so high in some of the major categories?

Let's start with opportunity. We are No. 1 in economic opportunity, thanks in large part to a No. 1 ranking low poverty rate and a No. 2 ranking in low food insecurity. We are also No. 4 in equality, helped by a No. 2 ranking in gender equality.

In education, we rank No. 1 in NAEP reading scores, No. 2 in NAEP math scores and college readiness, and No. 5 in 4-year college graduation rate.

For health care, we are tops in fewest nursing home citations and second in low infant mortality rate.

NOTE: The data was pulled from various sources, with government data being favored over other sources due to its reliability.

For each set, U.S. News used the most recent data available as of Dec. 22, 2016. Because datasets have different schedules for updates, data come from different years and months. This allowed U.S. News to pull many more data points. All data will be updated again for the 2018 relaunch of Best States. In some cases, data for certain states are missing because not all states provide data for all metrics. In other cases, especially in states with small populations, there weren’t enough people to have a statistically significant sample in a given year, which led to missing values. Metrics with missing data from the calculation of rankings for those states were omitted. Ties were rare in the dataset because scores were calculated to the maximum amount of decimal places without rounding. In some cases, where the score was from a letter grade, such as the digitization index, there were ties. Best States didn’t rank Washington, D.C., or U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico. Data for Washington, D.C. were included for national averages. You can see all the raw data behind the Best States ranking on the Data Explorer.