California has been ranked as the nation’s least affordable state, although it was also ranked as the 35th best state overall.
According to a report by U.S. News & World Report 2026 Best States Rankings, the best states were Utah, South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. Other states making it into the top ten were New Hampshire, Idaho, Florida, Washington, and Vermont.
States were ranked through 71 metrics in eight categories, such as education, healthcare, economics, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, environment, and crime. Each of the categories was further broken down into sub-categories. Using the categories as a guide, ratings were based on national surveys utilizing the opinions of tens of thousands of voices.
California ranked last for opportunity, likely due to its ranking last for affordability. Its economic opportunity, however, was rated as 19. Interestingly, Utah, as the leading state, ranked number 7 for crime, second for its economy, sixth in education, and second again for fiscal stability.
California, however, ranked 36 for crime, 26 for economy, 25 for healthcare, and 44 in fiscal stability.
Several California cities have also found themselves among the nation’s least educated areas. Those listed among the nation’s least-educated cities included Visalia, California; McAllen, Edinburg, and Mission, Texas; and Brownsville and Harlingen, Texas. The California cities of Bakersfield, Modesto, Salinas, Fresno, and Stockton were also listed.
The report, from WalletHub, compared the 150 largest metropolitan areas across several metrics, including those with adults 25 and older with at least a bachelor’s degree, quality of the public school system, and the size of educational gaps between genders. Cities with the greatest degree of education included Ann Arbor, Michigan; Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara, California.
