Local News
Massachusetts has fallen to No. 11 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best States rankings, dropping two spots from last year.
A nurse walks along the fifth floor patient’s rooms at Mass General Brigham’s Newton Wellesley Hospital. Massachusetts ranked second overall in the healthcare category in U.S. News’ 2026 Best States rankings. (John Tlumacki/Boston Globe)
July 31, 2026 | 4:35 PM
2 minutes to read
Massachusetts has fallen to No. 11 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best States rankings, dropping two spots from last year.
The state had ranked No. 9 in the 2025 edition of the annual report, which measures how well each of the 50 states is serving its residents across eight categories: health care, education, economy, infrastructure, fiscal stability, crime and safety, natural environment, and opportunity.
In 2026, Utah held onto the top overall spot for another year. South Dakota and Minnesota rounded out the new top three, followed by North Dakota and Nebraska. New Hampshire came in sixth, down from its second place spot last year. Idaho, Florida, Washington, and Vermont filled out the rest of the top 10.
Health care remains a strength for Massachusetts. The state maintained its second place ranking in the category, and was described as having “paved the way for other states” legislatively.
“It led the way in universal health care coverage, with a plan enacted in 2006 that inspired former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act,” the report said.
Massachusetts also scored well in crime (No. 4) and in the quality of its natural environment (No. 4), though the latter marks a slight step back from third place a year ago.
The biggest snags on the state’s overall standing came from several categories. Massachusetts ranked just 39th in fiscal stability and 38th in infrastructure, and its opportunity score — a measure that factors in housing affordability, income equality and other economic mobility indicators — came in at 41st. Education, another traditional strong suit for Massachusetts, slipped to No. 7 this year after ranking fifth in 2025.
U.S. News builds its overall rankings from 71 individual metrics folded into the eight main categories, weighting each category according to survey data on which issues residents say matter most to their states. Health care and education carry the heaviest weight in the formula, followed by the economy, infrastructure, and opportunity, with fiscal stability, crime and safety, and the natural environment weighted somewhat less.
The state’s economy was ranked No. 8 nationally. U.S. News credited education and health services as the leading employers in the state, alongside a manufacturing sector anchored by computer and electronic products, and pointed to tourist draws such as Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard as continuing to support the broader economy.
Read the full U.S. News “Best States 2026” report.
Annie Jonas is a Community writer at Boston.com. She was previously a local editor at Patch and a freelancer at the Financial Times.
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