New Hampshire ranked #3 state to live in

WalletHub just released its rankings of the best state to live in for 2023. It's always interesting to see where the Granite State sits on the list, and we were fortunate to be ranked the #3 best state to live in the country.

For many years New Hampshire has been pulling high accolades for livability and quality of life. In recent years New Hampshire was recognized by US News World Report as the #2 overall best state in the country. On another list published by The World Population Review in August of 2023, New Hampshire was ranked the #4 overall best state to live in.

In the WalletHub study released just days ago, Massachusetts came in at #1 with a total score of 61.67, New Jersey came in at #2 at 61.48, and New Hampshire was ranked #3 with a total score of 59.32, a pretty close race. Other New England states, including Maine at #12, Vermont at #17, Connecticut at #26, and Rhode Island at #29, rounded out the list.

When WalletHub compiled their study and rankings to arrive at the best and worst state to live in, they took all 50 states and rated them based on five key dimensions:

1. Affordability

2. Economy

3. Education and health

4. Quality of life

5. Safety

The company then evaluated the five dimensions above by 51 metrics with corresponding weights. They then determined each state's weighted average across all metrics to calculate each state's overall score.

For example, under affordability, they used the median annual taxes, cost of living, median annual household income and the homeownership rate.

For safety, they used violent crime rate, property crime rate, traffic-related fatalities per capita and total law enforcement employees.

For economy, they used the unemployment rate, the underemployment rate, sharecare well-being ‘economic security,’ the share of population living in poverty, median debt per earnings, population growth, income growth, building permit growth, wealth gap, central tax friendliness, entrepreneurial activity, job opportunities, foreclosure rate, bankruptcy rate, food insecurity, etc.

So, you can get an idea of how detailed and comprehensive this report was by using so many important metrics, 51 in total.

When you look at the opposite end of the spectrum, the report ranked New Mexico as the worst state to live in, followed by Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas and South Carolina.

Yes, we are very lucky living up here in the great state of New Hampshire, ranked #3, and when you look at our southern neighbor Massachusetts ranked as the #1 best state to live in the country, both states are in a very good place right now.

Back in March, I published an article titled “New Hampshire — 30 Reasons to Move Here,” and I guess this recent accolade brings the list to 31 reasons.

When you look around the country and see so many sad things happening from the Maui wildfires, crime in many inner cities, devastating hurricanes, tornados, and flooding, and the massive wildfires out west, New Hampshire is very fortunate to be buffered from these ongoing events and disasters. It’s no wonder that the Granite State is ranked the #1 safest state in the USA by WiseVoter for 2023 — another reason why all of us love calling New Hampshire home.

•••

This article was written by Frank Roche. Frank is president of Roche Realty Group with offices in Meredith and Laconia, and can be reached at 603-279-7046. Please feel free to visit rocherealty.com to learn more about the Lakes Region and its real estate market.