A new analysis of the best and worst U.S. states to move to in 2024 ranked Michigan 36th overall, though the Great Lakes State fell behind all but four for “quality of life.”
A recent report from Consumer Affairs compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia across five categories – affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety – to determine “The best and worst states to move to in 2024.”
Overall, researchers ranked Michigan 36th out of 51, and gave the state the same rank for affordability.
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Michigan’s best category was a ranking of 23rd for education and health, while all of the rest of the categories were ranked in the bottom half nationally.
Consumer Affairs ranked Michigan 33rd for safety, based on FBI data on property and violent crime rates, and the ratio of law enforcement employees to the general population.
Researchers looked at the share of the population living in poverty, population growth unemployment rate, and home values to rank Michigan 39th for its economy.
Michigan’s worst ranking was 47th in the quality of life category, confirming countless other recent reports detailing the struggles facing Michiganders.
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That metric was based on the quality of the state’s roads, weather, and the percentage of people who use public transportation to commute, based on data from Consumer Affairs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Only Massachusetts, Alaska, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island fared worse than Michigan,. All but Alaska received a higher overall ranking.
Michigan also received the lowest ranking overall among all Midwest states with the exception of Illinois in 39th.
Consumer Affairs named Utah as the best state to move to, followed by New Hampshire, Idaho, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Iowa and South Dakota.
California was ranked the worst, just ahead of New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alaska, Washington, Oklahoma, Washington, D.C., Oregon, and Mississippi.
The new ranking is the latest in a long line of recent reports and rankings that highlight Michigan’s decline since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took office in 2019.
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of Michiganders who could not afford a basic “survival budget” jumped by 13%, despite the overall number of Michigan households increasing a mere 2%, according to a recent United for ALICE report.
In Whitmer’s Michigan, 41% of the state’s 4 million households in 2022 lived below the ALICE threshold, and that included more than half in 11 counties: Gogebic, Ontonagon, Houghton, Baraga, Alger, Luce, Oscoda Iosco, Lake, Clare and Wayne. The 41% figure is up 4% from 2019, resulting in roughly 200,000 more residents struggling to survive.
Another study from WalletHub that looked at average credit scores, changes in bankruptcy filings over the last year, and share of residents with accounts in distress to dub Michigan the number one state with “the Most People in Financial Distress.”
Many of those folks are leaving Michigan for somewhere better, and Whitmer created a Growing Michigan Together Council to examine ways to reverse the exodus.
A report issued by the council last year found Michigan is “lagging in median income, educational outcomes and attainment, and (has) fallen behind faster-growing peer states in key measures of infrastructure, community well-being, and job opportunities.”
Similar findings have come from UM’s Michigan Poverty & Well-being Map, a 2024 Kids Count Data Book, a WalletHub analysis of the “Best and Worst-Run Cities in America,” U.S. News & World Report’s “50 Best Places to Live & Retire,” news reports on skyrocketing homelessness, a national “Best States” ranking, the National Poll on Healthy Aging, the U.S. Census Bureau, unemployment data and other sources.
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The best states ranking, compiled by U.S. News & World Report using “thousands of data points to measure how well states are performing for their citizens,” downgraded Michigan to 42nd for 2024, with scores across all eight different metrics examined in the bottom half nationally.
The data shows Michigan students have below average math test scores, are less likely to graduate high school, and leave college with more debt, when compared to the national average.
Other metrics show Michigan under Whitmer has a higher poverty rate, lower median household income, more industrial toxins, more drinking water violations, less renewable energy usage, worse roads, and higher rates of incarceration and violent crime than most states.