New Study Ranks Texas Low for Quality of Life

Texas seems like a great place to live and work, but our personal reality is often in conflict with a lot of facts. Looking at the date, the only thing Texas is best at is, claiming to be the best.

I'm going to tell you up front that I could be living in Hawaii with my brother, or California with my mother, but I chose Texas. Texas is just a good fit for me. So don't kill the messenger when you hear the rest of this, because I'm as Texas as they come.

For some reason Texans have always had outsized state pride. I guess it's important to be proud of your roots, but Texans are crazy about Texas in a crazy and sometimes obnoxious way.

New Study Ranks Texas As Very Mediocre

The problem is that Texas isn't really great at anything, at least according to data points. Maybe we're just good enough at a bunch of things that it adds up, but when isolated, we fail almost all quality of life surveys.

U.S. News & World Report just listed its "Best States 2025" study, and Texas did not fare well. Texas came in at #29 on the list, and it could have been much worse.

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The study used thousands of data points to rate eight categories; Crime & Corrections, Education, Healthcare, Natural Environment, Economy, Fiscal Stability, Infrastructure, and Opportunity. Texas clocked in at #2 for Economy, and #12 for Fiscal Stability but it was all downhill from there.

So what does coming in at #26 in the "Best States" study mean? I would think it would mean that we have some work to do. It would be great if we could look at a couple of these areas and really work towards making Texas the great state that we all think it is.