Top Five Best and Worst U.S. Places to Live for Good Health and Life

Michigan's Promotional Campaign

The Great Lakes State

Although different renowned companies list the best places in which to live and work in America, Michigan officials in 2023 announced that on their state as the very best.

U.S. News & World Report published its list of Best Places to Live in the U.S. in 2023-2024, naming two best Michigan cities: Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. The state offers the seventh lowest cost of living in America.

Other Michigan cities to make the cut include Lansing (state Capitol), Kalamazoo, Detroit, and even Flint (for a developing new economy, low cost of living, and thriving arts community).

The complete listing names the best and worst states in which to live and work, and that material, with explanations, is offered below.

'Woman in Michigan' Governs the No. 1 Economy. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has the state’s economy humming.

— Matthew Winkler at Bloomberg.com; February 2022.

Michigan's Best Cities

States to Perhaps Avoid for Relocation

Many media outlets analyze cities and U.S. states annually to determine where to advise their readers and viewers to move for the best opportunities.

During 2023, CNBC news ranked all 50 states on 80 different characteristics and statistics that resulted in groups of both best and worst places to go for work or to bring your company.

The Life, Health and Inclusion (especially voting rights) category analysis results in perhaps the most vital rating of all, especially since the lowering national unemployment rate (3.6% in June 2023) is leaving employers little chance of hiring needed workers in the first place.

The five worst American states for jobs and business are discussed below, and a short list of the five best appears at the end of this article.

We can expect these best and worst places to maintain their statuses throughout a decade to 2033.

The worst places in America have deficiencies in healthcare, crime prevention, and voting rights.

Lone Star has America's highest percentage of folks without health insurance, with the second lowest number of primary care doctors per capita. It is not a particularly healthy place to be.

Number 1. Lone Star State

Texas used to be one of the top five states for finding a job and starting or expanding a business, but no more.

The state has big things to recommend it, like big cities, and many small and big businesses, including Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Aerospace, but it also is subject to large immigration and detention problems at the Mexico border, anti-diversity groups, pockets of racism, elimination of voter polling places, controversy over women's health needs, and a hotter heat wave every summer that makes people sick and even kills some.

The state ranks 50th in Life, Health and Inclusion, making it the worst place to relocate in America. For example, in July 2023 amid continual political uproar over women's health rights and the nation's strictest abortion ban being in Texas, Houston incurred a large outbreak of syphilis among women, especially pregnant women. West Nile virus was found in Greater Dallas and a case of malaria was discovered; both of these diseases are quite dangerous.

Texas is one of 19 states that permits corporal punishment in schools.

The Texas Triangle

The Texas Triangle is an official U.S. economic megaregion that contains the four vital urban centers of Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, and nearly two-thirds of all Texans. The area also has been called the Texas Triangle of Despair on Twitter and Reddit because of crowdedness of the growing population and fossil fuel pollution with its related diseases.

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I love the growing towns on the Texas-Mexico border that have sister cities just to the south and are creating lively shared economies and cultures, but the increasing summer heat, illness, and political turmoil keep me from venturing into Texas!

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Number 2. Sooner State, Oklahoma

Oklahoma has a significant amount of substance abuse and is second in percentage of uninsured individuals only to Texas. Their strict abortion ban became legal over 100 years ago in 1910. Today unless an abortion is needed to save the mother's live, it is a felony that might be punished with up to five years' incarceration for the mother. A few extremist voices have asked for the mother to be executed, but no such legislation has been proposed.

Oklahoma allows corporal punishment in schools.

A recent state government report in 2020 stated that Oklahoma shows a high prevalence of smoking among youth and adults, uninsured people, obese youth, all with a premature death rate!

This is another state that saw many voters' polling stations closed before or on the day of the 2020 Presidential Election. The residents of the many Native American reservations in Oklahoma have been denied the right to vote because of the way their addresses are assigned on their land.

This state does not seem to be a place where all citizens are equal.

Number 3. Bayou State, Louisiana

Louisiana is directly connected to the Texas Triangle along highway Interstate 10 heading east, and it suffers some of the same drawbacks.

State law bans both surgical and medication-induced abortion except in rare cases to save a pregnant person's life or when the fetus dies in utero. Other abortions can result in civil and criminal consequences.

Ever since the floods of 2005, the threat of flooding and related illnesses clouds life in the southern part of the state. Fortunately, the Biden Administration provided a large amount of funding in 2023 to build up the Louisiana shoreline. Quality of life and safety should increase during the next decade.

While having a population of nearly five million, the state has only about 75 licensed daycare centers, limiting the ability of parents, especially single parents, to work. This is the worst state in the union for childcare, but new targeted funding was made available in 2023 to improve the problem. Life should get better soon.

A poll of voters during the spring of 2023 showed that their main concern was in reducing crime. According to NOLA.com and the Southwest Journal, the state suffers the highest murder rate in the country, with New Orleans having the highest rate of violent crimes overall.

Louisiana allows corporal punishment in schools.

I love Louisiana, especially New Orleans, but I am not ready to move there.

Number 4. (tie) Palmetto State, South Carolina

South Carolina could be seen as a very dangerous place to work and live. It suffers America's fifth-highest rate of occupational deaths and ranks in the top ten for frequent physical and i, often caused by physical and mental stress.

In 2022, the state ranked only 41st for positive healthcare outcomes and 32nd for healthcare accessibility. Drug overdose is the second leading cause of mortality after heart disease, COVID-19 was third, and firearms deaths are fourth,

The FBI tracked an increase in violent crime in the state since 2016 and in 2022 the state had the seventh highest rate of crime in the U.S. at 5,870 per 100,000 people.

South Carolina permits corporal punishment in schools.

Voting rights and elimination of voting sites around election day have also been a problem here.

This state does not seem a healthy or safe place.

Long Lines at the Polls

My Experiences in South Carolina

I have spent time in all of the five worst states listed below, but have found South Carolina to be the bottom in terms of racial tensions and bigotry. The state has many positive features, but I believe that I might never be able to live there.

As a child on a visit in the 1960s to SC, I greeted a Black maid at our motel, but she ducked her head and moved away. In a restaurant, a White couple sitting not far from my family took objection to my mother and wanted our family to be ejected. Seeing her olive skin and black hair, inherited from Native American ancestors, the White couple believed her to be Black and asked that the family be ejected. I was stunned, but my family was not asked to leave.

On visits during the 1970s through the 1990s, I found less hesitation on the part of Blacks when I spoke to them, but racial tensions were still palpable.

Today, people of color find it difficult to vote in this state, because many voting places are mysteriously closed down on the day of each election.

Armed men have stood at the entrances to other polling places in an attempt to frighten people of color away and to some extent, this worked. In addition, it was temporarily aa crime to give water or food to anyone standing n the longlines at the polling places that were open. All of this is abusive.

Number 4. (tie) Yellowhammer State, Alabama

During Election 2020, news media featured sties and images of many polling places in Alabama with lines of people many blocks long.

During that time is was illegal for anyone to approach the lines and give even drinking water to those waiting to vote. There is no early voting program and no mail-in ballots allowed yet, so voting at all is difficult in Alabama.

Alabama is an unhealthy state, with the country's fourth highest rate of premature deaths. Anti-discrimination laws and regulations and OSHA-type workers' protections do not seem well enforced. As a right-to-work-state, unions are largely disallowed altogether.

According to the CDC, leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, drug overdose, firearms, homicides, and COVID-19. This does not present a healthy picture for the state.

Alabama prohibits abortions except those medically necessary to save the mother's life and there is no exception for incest or rape.

Alabama permits corporal punishment in schools.

One Alabama town elected a Black man, Patrick Braxton, as mayor in 2020, but the former White mayor and town council locked the new mayor out of his offices and took over!

Great Places for Life, Health and Voting

Five Best States for Life, Health and Inclusion

1. Vermont: Second lowest crime rate in 2022. Universal mail-in voting thrives. New healthcare laws aim to protect workers from violence at work.
2. Maine: Lowest state crime rate in 2022. Residents hope to vote online after the November 2023 election. Large investments of private and federal finds have been made to improve healthcare.
3. New Jersey: Fourth lowest crime. Voting accessibility is expanding. In 2023, the governor expanded healthcare into reproductive services.
4. Minnesota: Thirteenth lowest crime rate. Voting rights have expanded and some older teens can pre-register to vote before then turn 18. Healthcare expanded in 2022-2023, with help from the Mayo Clinic.
5. Hawaii: Tenth lowest crime rate. Universal mail-in voting is in force. Several healthcare bills to expand services were signed by the governor in 2023.

Sources

• Cohn, S. America’s 10 worst states to live and work in for 2023. CNBC.com; July 14, 2023.
• CNBC Staff Writers. America's top states for business, 2023; July 2023.
• Cullum-Clark, J.H. The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others.
  Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research/Urban Edge; 2021.
• Davis, E., Jr. The 10 Best States for Jobs. U.S. News and World Report; May 2023.
• Marini, M. Six Michigan cities land spots on U.S. News 150 best cities to live in the nation. Detroit Free Press; May 2023.
• Richie, R. Y. Life Magazine - Texas Oil Story; July - December 1937. Southern Methodist University, Texas.
• River, M. 10 Most Dangerous Cities in Louisiana 2023: In Harm’s Way. Southwest Journal; June 2023.
• Sperling's Best Places
• Texas Medical Association

This article is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.

© 2023 Patty Inglish MS