Iowa is the best state in the nation when it comes to infrastructure, healthcare, opportunity and education among other topics, according to a new report.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Iowa No. 1 in the country in its Best States rankings released Tuesday — which evaluates all 50 states across a range of criteria. This is the second year U.S. News has ranked states. Last year, Iowa was sixth overall.
According to this year’s report, the rankings show how each of the 50 U.S. states perform in 77 metrics across eight categories. Those categories include:
- Health care
- Education
- Economy
- Opportunity
- Infrastructure
- Crime
- Fiscal stability
- Quality of life
The data behind the rankings came from McKinsey & Company‘s Leading States Index, the report said, and results from the eight categories were based on the average of two years’ worth of data from an annual national survey that asked more than 30,000 people to prioritize each subject in their state.
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Here’s how Iowa ranked in each category:
- Infrastructure: 1st
- Health care: 3rd
- Opportunity: 4th
- Education: 5th
- Quality of life: 9th
- Crime: 15th
- Economy: 17th
- Fiscal stability: 21st
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds joined “CBS This Morning” in studio with Brian Kelly, chief content officer of U.S. News, shortly after the rankings were released Tuesday, where the discussed the rankings as well as other topics pertaining to the report and current events.