US News and World Reports just released the Best State Rankings. Minnesota is ranked third overall. So that’s definitely well above average.

Here’s how we ranked on the individual categories:

• Health Care: 3
• Education: 11
• Crime & Corrections: 17
• Infrastructure: 5
• Opportunity: 2
• Economy: 12
• Government: 24

Infrastructure is energy, Internet access and transportation. Here’s how we did there:

• Energy: 11
• Internet access: 10
• Transportation: 5

The internet rankings measure download speed for broadband and the percentage of households with broadband internet. Here’s how we did there:

• Households with Internet access (of those with a computer): 12 (at 84.8 percent)
• Online download speed: 12 (with about 86.4 percent having access to 100 Mbps)

I’m not going to dig too deeply into definition or research methods – but on a Friday, it’s just nice to see we’re #3! It feels like that’s the A- of rankings. You’re proud to tell your parents but you know someone’s going to point out room for improvement!