These 10 states are America’s best for quality of life in 2025
With talent in short supply and the nation’s workforce more mobile than ever, companies are seeking to locate in places where workers want to live. That makes quality of life an economic issue. And state economic development organizations are leaning into that as they pitch their states to business.
“Connecticut is one state with a whole lot of everything,” the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development declares on its website, which goes on to tout the state’s “good quality of life” more than half a dozen times.
“New Mexico offers a place your employees will love and want to stay,” its state economic development website says.
“The good life is calling,” says Nebraska.
But where is the best life? CNBC’s annual competitiveness study, America’s Top States for Business, is here to find out. Because quality of life has become so essential in attracting quality talent, we consider it among ten categories of competitiveness. While any state can say it is a great place to live, we put those claims to the test using empirical data.
The category considers factors including the crime rate, air quality, and the cost and availability of child care. We also consider legal protections for workers, and protections against discrimination. And with data showing younger workers considering reproductive rights in their choice of where they are willing to live, we factor those state laws in our rankings as well.
Under this year’s methodology, Quality of Life represents 10.6% of a state’s total Top States score.
Some states do not measure up well when it comes to quality of life. But these states are America’s most desirable places to live and work in.
8. (tie) Virginia
A pedestrian jogs along the George Washington Memorial Parkway at sunrise in Arlington, Virginia, on June 24, 2025.
Tom Brenner | The Washington Post | Getty Images
With some 2.6 million people packed into just 1,300 square miles, Northern Virginia is certainly crowded. But it often doesn’t feel that way.
Crime in the commonwealth is on the low side despite its size. And Virginians are healthy, ranking in the top ten nationally for frequent exercise, according to the United Health Foundation.
Virginia‘s air quality is generally good, with only Arlington and Fairfax Counties in the D.C. Metro area receiving poor grades for ozone pollution, according to the American Lung Association.
But child care can be scarce, with just about 1,500 licensed centers in a state of 8.8 million people, according to Child Care Aware of America. It can also be pricey, at about 11% of median income for a two-income household.
2025 Quality of Life Score: 167 out of 265 Points (Top States Grade: B-)
Strengths: Air Quality, Health, Low Crime Rate
Weakness: Child Care
8. (tie) Nebraska
Men walking in field landscape near Hastings, Nebraska.
Adam C Bartlett | Connect Images | Getty Images
Life in the heartland is as healthy and wholesome as it is cracked up to be, at least by the numbers in The Cornhusker State. With only 3,372 violent offenses in 2023 in a state of nearly two million people, according to FBI statistics, the crime rate is the sixth lowest in the nation.
Nebraska also ranks in the top five states for clean air, based on data from the American Lung Association and the non-profit First Street Foundation.
And Nebraskans are healthy, with among the lowest incidences of mental and physical distress, and the second lowest rate of drug deaths, according to the United Health Foundation.
But child care is relatively scarce, and expensive. Nebraska has just 864 licensed child care centers, and child care costs, on average, 15% of the median income for a two-parent household. State law bars private insurance coverage for abortions, which are banned after 12 weeks.
2025 Quality of Life Score: 167 out of 265 Points (Top States Grade: B-)
Strengths: Air Quality, Health, Low Crime Rate
Weaknesses: Child Care, Reproductive Rights
8. (tie) Massachusetts
A woman gets an acupuncture treatment from an oncology acupuncturist, Dongyan Yu, at The Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living at Dana-Farber on June 9, 2025.
Stan Grossfeld | The Boston Globe | Getty Images
The Bay State is America’s healthiest, with the lowest incidence of premature death, according to the United Health Foundation. It might have to do with the fact that Massachusetts ranks No. 1 in primary care doctors and mental health providers per capita, not to mention number two for dentists. Just 2.6% of Massachusetts residents lack health insurance — the lowest percentage in the country — compared to nearly 8% nationally.
Massachusetts is a leader in worker protections, according to Oxfam America’s annual scorecard on Best and Worst States to Work in the U.S. — particularly when it comes to guaranteeing the…
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