Florida ranks in best states to live, despite low healthcare, education scores. Here's why

Personal finance company WalletHub released its list of the best states to live in 2025 today, Aug. 11.

Despite recent top 10 “worst” placements on WalletHub’s best and worst states to have a baby, healthcare and child care in 2025, Florida ranked among the top 10 best states to live overall.

“To find out the best states to live in, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on 51 key indicators of livability,” the study says. “They range from housing costs and income growth to the education rate and quality of hospitals.”

Here’s where Florida ranked in WalletHub’s best 10 states to live in and why.

Here’s why it isn’t among best states: Florida falls behind in 2025 early education ranking.

Where does Florida rank in the best states to live in?

To find the best states to live in, WalletHub compared each U.S. state across 51 metrics in five categories: affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life and safety.

Florida took sixth place overall, likely because the education and health metrics were combined into one category for this study.

In the last few weeks, Florida ranked as the eighth-worst state to have a baby, in the 15 most-expensive states for child care and the tenth-worst state for healthcare on WalletHub rankings lists.

Florida also recently fell four rankings on WalletHub’s list of best and worst states for early childhood education. In 2024, the Sunshine State placed 37th. This year, Florida ranked among the 15 worst states in 41st place.

Here’s how Florida ranked in WalletHub’s five metric categories:

Affordability: 32nd overall
Education and health: 26th overall
Quality of life: fourth overall

Florida also took sixth place overall on a similar rankings study of the best states to live in, released by U.S. News and World Report in May, and was the only southern state to make it on the top 10 list.