Fifth Place: Washington Ranked On List Of 'Best States'

BELLEVUE, WA - Forget about all that talk of a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake; forget about the traffic; forget about the insane real estate market; and forget about the car tab fees.

Today is a day to celebrate, for Washington has been ranked the 5th best state in the U.S. (and the best state PERIOD along the West Coast).

The magazine U.S. News and World Report, which seems to specialize in ranking things, ranked us so highly due our scores on seven factors: healthcare, education, crime, infrastructure, opportunity, economy, and government. We ranked highest among the states for infrastructure (No. 2 overall), but pretty low for crime (No. 25 overall).

One note on that infrastructure ranking, collapsing bridges aside: we came in No. 1 in the nation for electricity costs. So keep that in mind next time you hear a Seattleite sneer at Eastern Washington for its political conservatism.

Take heart: we got beat on the list by some pretty good states. Ranking above us from No. 1 to 4 were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and North Dakota (uh, North Dakota?).

The next-highest West Coast state on the list was (puke) Oregon at No. 19. California was No. 23.

The worst state in the U.S., according to the list, is Louisiana. In fact, the bottom four states were all in the Southeast.

Image via Creative Commons