Best & Worst States To Live In List: Here’s Where Illinois Ranks

There's been a lot of ink spilled discussing the problems Illinois is having with "outbound migration." Outbound migration is just a fancier way of saying leaving, exiting, or just plain moving away from someplace for various reasons.

For people leaving the state of Illinois, there's one big reason that seems to trump all other reasons for leaving: Taxes. Chicago's population has now dropped to where it was in 1920, and Chicago is also in danger of falling behind Houston in population, which would make the Second City actually the Fourth City within the next nine years.

IllinoisPolicy.org:

Last year, polling conducted for the Illinois Policy Institute showed 34% of Chicagoans would leave the city if given the opportunity, with 39% of those who said they would move citing taxes and affordability as a reason. Polling from NPR Illinois and the University of Illinois found 61% of Illinoisans thought about moving out of state in 2019, and the No. 1 reason was taxes.

With all that info, you'd figure that Illinois was way, way down on the list of the Best States To Live In (2024) that was recently released by personal-finance website WalletHub...but we're not.

Before We Get To Illinois' Overall Ranking, Let's Take A Quick Look At The States WalletHub Determined Are The 5 Best States To Live In

To come up with the rankings, WalletHub's experts looked at "51 key indicators of livability. They range from housing costs and income growth to the education rate and quality of hospitals."

From that criteria, here are the top 5 best states in which to live in 2024:

• Massachusetts
• Florida
• New Jersey
• Utah
• New Hampshire

The 5 states at the bottom of the list (46-50):

• Nevada
• Alaska
• Arkansas
• New Mexico
• Louisiana

Based On WalletHub's List Rankings, Illinois Doesn't Have Anything To Be Ashamed Of

That's because the Land of Lincoln shows up at a very respectable ranking of #16 overall.

Illinois gets a score of 55.63 (for comparison, #1 Massachusetts' score is 60.52)

• Illinois is ranked 37th out of 50 in Affordability
• 49th out of 50 for Economy
• 22nd in Education and Health
• 5th in Quality of Life
• 6th in Safety

Here's where our Midwestern neighbors rank overall:

• Wisconsin: 8th
• Iowa: 12th
• Minnesota: 13th
• Indiana: 27th
• Missouri: 31st
• Michigan: 32nd
• Kentucky is 37th