WA slides again in ranking of best states, but remains in Top 10

There’s some good news and bad news for Washington in the U.S. News & World Report “Best States” rankings for 2025. The good news is Washington remains one of the 10 best states in the nation. The bad news is we’re trending in the wrong direction.

In the 2025 report, which was released Tuesday, Washington ranked 10th. That’s down from eighth in 2024, and way down from second in the 2023 rankings.

The report factors in 71 metrics across eight broad categories: health care, education, economy, crime rates, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability and natural environment.

Among those eight, Washington’s best showings were for the infrastructure and natural environment categories — the state ranked seventh for both. The infrastructure categories includes various data related to energy, transportation, and internet access. The natural environment category ranks aspects of air and water quality, and pollution.

In 2024, Washington also ranked seventh for infrastructure, but only ranked 11th for natural environment, so that was one area of improvement in this year’s report.

Another was the education category, in which Washington was ninth, up from 13th in 2024. But it’s worth noting the state’s high marks for education were due to an excellent showing in the higher education subcategory, ranking third in the nation. For pre-K-12, Washington did much worse, ranking 31st among the 50 states.

Washington also improved in the crime and corrections category, ranking 33rd, up from 39th in 2024. The Evergreen State did well in the corrections subcategory, placing fifth, but did poorly in the public safety subcategory, only ranking 44th. The public safety subcategory is based on crime rates.

In the remaining four categories, Washington did worse in 2025 than in 2024.

Washington ranked 15th in health care, down from 10th in 2024. The U.S. News & World Report news release notes that Washington was one of three states, along with New York and Hawaii, that saw steep drops in the share of children and young adults on Medicaid who saw a doctor for a checkup.

Washington fell in the fiscal stability category, at 16th, down from 14th in 2024. Interestingly, Washington ranked No. 1 in the nation in the long-term fiscal stability subcategory, but nearly last — 49th — for short-term fiscal. Long-term fiscal responsibility takes into account government credit rating and pension fund liability, while short-term fiscal responsibility includes budget balancing and access to enough capital to cover short-term liabilities.

Washington also dropped in the economy category, ranking 23rd, down from 14th in 2024. This category takes into account each state’s business environment, labor market and overall economic growth.

The state’s worst category was opportunity, ranking 40th, down slightly from 37th in 2024. This category takes into account economic opportunity, equality and affordability. Washington would have done well here if it weren’t for — you guessed it — affordability, which is based on the overall cost of living and the cost of housing. Washington ranked 46th for affordability, ahead of only California, New Jersey, Hawaii and Massachusetts.

The No. 1 state in the union, for the third consecutive year, was Utah, which ranked in the Top 20 across seven of the eight categories. Utah’s only poor performance was in the natural environment category, in which the state ranked 48th.

Let’s not call any state the worst. Instead, the “least best” state in 2025 was Louisiana. This is becoming something of a tradition for the Bayou State, which has now ranked dead last for four consecutive years. Louisiana placed in the bottom 10 across all eight categories.