Minnesota Ranked as One of the Best States Overall for 2026

When a Minnesotan says Minnesota is great, it's fair to think they may be biased. But when a new study comes out saying that Minnesota is, in fact, one of the best states in the US overall, then you know it's real.

Yes, it was determined that Minnesota is one of the best states overall. This is based on factors like education, healthcare, natural environment, and opportunity.

We did not, however, take the top spot.

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Minnesota is One of the Best States in the US (2026)

The study was done by US News and World Report. To give you more of an idea of what they looked at to determine the rankings, let me get into a bigger list of the categories they looked at:

Crime and Corrections
Education
Healthcare
Natural Environment
Economy
Fiscal Stability
Infrastructure
Opportunity

After looking at all of that for all 50 states, they determined that Minnesota is the THIRD best state in the US! I'll take it!

Our best categories were Infrastructure (#9), Natural Environment (#10), Opportunity (#11), and Fiscal Stability (#11).

The states the took the top two spots were... South Dakota at number two and Utah at number one.

The rest of our neighboring states didn't do so bad either. Wisconsin ranked #15, Iowa at #12, and North Dakota at #4.

The Worst States in the US Overall (2026)

And of course we need to look at the other side of the coin, the worst states according to this study. The three states at the bottom are Mississippi at #48, Alaska at #49, and Louisiana at #50.