A new ranking released this week by the U.S. News and World Report has Michigan scoring low in health care, infrastructure and education.
The Great Lakes State is positioned at 37th overall on the "best states" list with the 32nd best health care, 36th best education and 22nd best economy. Michigan's "opportunity" score is ranked at 20th overall while the state's infrastructure is ranked 40th overall.
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When it comes to crime and corrections, Michigan received a 32nd overall ranking. The state also is 32nd overall for fiscal stability and 29th for quality of life.
Here are Michigan's scores (overall ranking) by category:
- Health Care -- 32
- Education -- 36
- Economy -- 22
- Opportunity -- 20
- Infrastructure -- 40
- Crime and Corrections -- 32
- Fiscal Stability -- 32
- Quality of Life -- 29
Michigan's neighbor Ohio comes in at 40th overall with the following scores: 36th in health care, 41st in education, 32nd for economy, 25th for opportunity, 23rd for infrastructure, 18th for crime and corrections, 37th for fiscal responsibility and 40th for quality of life.
Meanwhile, the state of Iowa is ranked the "best state" overall with the 3rd best health care, 5th best education, 17th best economy, 4th best opportunity, the 1st overall infrastructure, 15th best crimes and corrections, 21st overall fiscal stability and the 9th best quality of life score.
Louisiana received the worst state overall designation.
View the complete rankings here.
How the rankings were put together
The U.S. News and World Report's methodology for this ranking examined those eight factors -- health care, education, economy, opportunity, infrastructure, crime and corrections, fiscal stability and quality of life -- and gave them each a weight "based on the average of two years of data from an annual national survey that asked a total of more than 30,000 people to prioritize each subject in their state."
Here are the weights for each category:
- Health Care: 16.1 percent
- Education: 15.5 percent
- Economy: 14.4 percent
- Opportunity: 13.4 percent
- Infrastructure: 12.5 percent
- Crime & Corrections: 10.6 percent
- Fiscal Stability: 9.5 percent
- Quality of Life: 8.1 percent
These categories were broken down into even more categories with their own weights:
Health Care
- Health Care Access: 33 percent
- Health Care Quality: 33 percent
- Public Health: 33 percent
Education
- Higher Education: 50 percent
- Pre-K - 12: 50 percent
Economy
- Growth: 50 percent
- Employment: 30 percent
- Business Environment: 20 percent
Opportunity
- Economic Opportunity: 40 percent
- Equality: 40 percent
- Affordability: 20 percent
Infrastructure
- Energy: 33 percent
- Internet Access: 33 percent
- Transportation: 33 percent
Crime & Corrections
- Corrections: 50 percent
- Public Safety: 50 percent
Fiscal Stability
- Long-term: 50 percent
- Short-term: 50 percent
Quality of Life
- Natural Environment: 50 percent
- Social Environment: 50 percent
The organization explains:
"For the overall ranking, U.S. News created a weighted average of the eight category rankings and multiplied each by the weight for each category, and then ranked the outcome. We chose this method for the overall ranking so it would not be skewed by large differences in scores at a metric level."