You may hear about an exodus of residents leaving the Empire State every year in the news. Some of the issues that could be driving away these people are the high cost of living, cold winters, and rising crime rates in New York City. But there are plenty of benefits to living in New York state, and a new study claims it's got the data to back it up. WalletHub has thrown together the numbers using a bunch of factors, and it looks like New York isn't so bad after all.

The Study

WalletHub factored everything from access to national parks, the number of entertainment and recreation establishments, shoreline miles, and, yes, even weather. Compared to most other states, we're a pretty "fun" place to be. Overall, New York ranked 4th in the country. Only California, Florida, and Nevada ranked higher. West Virginia was dead last at 50th.

Is NY More Fun Than New Jersey?

Lists like this are always subjective, so not everyone is going to agree. But if we are to believe what this study found, New York is a lot more fun than some of our neighboring states. Massachusetts was 23rd, New Jersey 30th, Connecticut 43rd, and Vermont 45th. Pennsylvania didn't do so bad, as they were ranked 10th.

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Different Studies, Different Results 

A website called TOP Agency compiled a list of all the states and ranked them on eight key dimensions: Affordability, Crime & Safety, Economy, Education, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Opportunity, and Quality of Life. Where is New York? Overall, we ranked as the 19th best state to live in. We were 6th best for Healthcare and 8th best for Crime & Safety.

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Methodology  

As we watch the news every night, the fact that New York ranked so well in crime and safety may surprise some. TOP Agency boke down that category into such metrics as; motor vehicle theft and damage, hate crimes, burglary, homicide, property crime, robbery rate, fraud and identity theft, mass shooting casualties, sex offenders, fatal motor vehicle crashes, and fire fatalities. The rates from each metric were broken down per 100K people from the year 2020. So, consider the state's overall population, and the fact that a lot of the higher violent crimes are committed in New York City.

Where We Need Improvement 

New York ranked 47th overall for Affordability and 44th for Economy.

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Residents are Still Leaving New York though

According to numbers released by the US Census Bureau Monday, the Empire State lost 319,020 people from July 2020 to July 2021. That's quite a significant number that outnumbers the combined population drop in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Michigan, and Ohio. That's big.

That's quite a jump since even just last year. Estimates from the Census Bureau say 126,355 residents left New York between July 2019 and July 2020. Spectrum News says that New York will lose a congressional seat in 2022 in the House of Representatives. New York's population has been steadily dropping since 2010. According to the numbers from the Empire Center for Public Policy, the state has lost 1,379,210 residents between 2010 and 2019, and that's not even factoring in the latest numbers. One can only imagine what those numbers will look like in a few more years.

RANKED: Here are the most popular national parks

To determine the most popular national parks in the United States, Stacker compiled data from the National Park Service on the number of recreational visits each site had in 2020. Keep reading to discover the 50 most popular national parks in the United States, in reverse order from #50 to #1. And be sure to check with individuals parks before you visit to find out about ongoing, pandemic-related safety precautions at www.nps.gov/coronavirus.

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