Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

Iowa is the best state in the nation when it comes to infrastructure, healthcare, opportunity and education among other topics, according to a new report.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Iowa No. 1 in the country in its Best States rankings released Tuesday — which evaluates all 50 states across a range of criteria. This is the second year U.S. News has ranked states. Last year, Iowa was sixth overall.

According to this year's report, the rankings show how each of the 50 U.S. states perform in 77 metrics across eight categories. Those categories include:

Health care

Education

Economy

Opportunity

Infrastructure

Crime

Fiscal stability

Quality of life

The data behind the rankings came from McKinsey & Company's Leading States Index, the report said, and results from the eight categories were based on the average of two years' worth of data from an annual national survey that asked more than 30,000 people to prioritize each subject in their state.

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Here's how Iowa ranked in each category:

Infrastructure: 1st

Health care: 3rd

Opportunity: 4th

Education: 5th

Quality of life: 9th

Crime: 15th

Economy: 17th

Fiscal stability: 21st

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds joined "CBS This Morning" in studio with Brian Kelly, chief content officer of U.S. News, shortly after the rankings were released Tuesday, where the discussed the rankings as well as other topics pertaining to the report and current events.

"What an honor it is to recognize Iowans that are making a difference in communities every single day all across our state," Reynolds said. "And Iowa truly is a place where if you work hard, dream big, anything is possible."

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Reynolds said currently her biggest challenge as governor is improving Iowans' overall quality of life as it relates to job growth and paths to success.

"I think if we have a talent pipeline ready to to meet the needs and we're providing opportunities for Iowans in our state to really have a great quality of life, that's how we're going to succeed and continue to stay on top."

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David Daack, a broadband consultant for Connected Nation which does business in Iowa as Connect Iowa, told U.S. News that the state's top ranking in infrastructure and the broadband access metric within came as a "pleasant surprise."

"When people think of Iowa, they usually think of agricultural places that won't necessarily need to be connected," Daack said. "But given the big data needs of agriculture today and in the future, those areas are going to need to be every bit as connected as the urban areas.

"… You could almost argue that maybe we should go (to the farms) first and work our way back into the cities."

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These are the states that made the top 10:

1. Iowa

2. Minnesota

3. Utah

4. North Dakota

5. New Hampshire

6. Washington

7. Nebraska

8. Massachusetts

9. Vermont

10. Colorado

And here are the states that shaped the bottom 10:

41. Kentucky

42. South Carolina

43. Oklahoma

44. Alaska

45. Arkansas

46. Alabama

47. West Virginia

48. New Mexico

49. Mississippi

50. Louisiana

You can read the full report from U.S. News here as well as the section on Iowa here.

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