Colorado gets low scores for affordability & safety in new "Best States to Live In" list

Affordable housing is a top priority for many politicians in Colorado this year, and for good reason. The high cost of living in the Centennial state has been widely reported, and it is having negative effect on the state's rankings in a new "Top States to Live in" list. That issue, paired with a low rank for crime, contributed to Colorado's score being much lower than it might have been.

Last year Colorado (No. 20) was barely in the Top 20 in WalletHub's "Top States to Live in" list for 2022. This year it is in a similar position (No. 18).

That's too bad considering WalletHub gave Colorado great scores in several other key metrics: quality of life, economy, education & health. Colorado got high marks in areas like health care, weather, amount of bike and walking trails, quality of roads, unemployment rate and cultural offerings.

But crime dragged Colorado's overall rank down. It was listed as having the fifth highest crime rate in the U.S. Auto theft has to be a large contributor to that; as of late last month 18,000 vehicles have been stolen in Colorado.

For people who are considering moving in our out of Colorado and considering rankings like WalletHub's (and low affordability scores such as the ones Colorado got in 2023), one of the experts consulted for the study shared advice.

"Income and sales tax rates are readily determined from a simple Google search. Less obvious but equally informative are things like automobile and apartment/home insurance rates for the zip code one is considering living in. They reflect the property risks," wrote Robert P. Strauss, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "Knowing that several insurance companies are no longer writing policies for California and Florida because of various environmental factors is pretty informative."

The top four states in WalletHub's 2023 list were all on the East Coast: Massachusetts (No. 1), New Jersey (No. 2), New Hampshire (No. 3) and New York (No. 4). Colorado's neighbor to the north -- Wyoming -- landed at No. 5 with high marks in the two metrics Colorado scored low in -- safety and affordability.

Colorado's neighbor to the south -- New Mexico -- was ranked last (No. 50) with low marks in just about every metric.

Click here to see the full ranking.