Virginia Ranks In Top 10 States In Country: U.S. News

Virginia ranked high on U.S. News' list of top states in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s third annual best states rankings.

Virginia came in at seventh overall on U.S. News’ list. It was a significant jump from 20th in 2018 thanks to strong rankings in a few individual categories.

Here’s how Virginia performed in individual categories:

Health Care: #18
Education: #7
Economy: #25
Opportunity: #9
Infrastructure: #35
Crime & Corrections: #9
Fiscal Stability: #8
Natural Environment: #18

Washington state ranked first on the list. According to U.S. News, Washington’s economy is “booming” thanks to companies like Amazon and Microsoft that are based in the state. Washington also ranks in the top five for health care, economy, infrastructure and education, U.S. News says.

To compile the rankings, U.S. News looked at 71 metrics under eight categories. The eight rankings were weighted based on the average of three years data from a national survey that asked respondents to prioritize each category in their state. Health care, education and economy received the top three weights in the methodology. After U.S. News calculated category scores and rankings, it compiled overall rankings by creating weighted averages of the individual category rankings. (You can read the full methodology here.)

A national survey conducted by U.S. News found that just 27 percent of respondents generally agree that their state is doing all it can to help residents prosper. The survey also found that 52 percent of respondents are generally dissatisfied about the quality of education in their state, 48 percent are dissatisfied about the quality of infrastructure and 42 percent are dissatisfied about the quality of health care.

Respondents also agreed that education, infrastructure and health care are the most underfunded by state governments.