The Lone Star State has attracted millions of new residents from across the country for decades, touting its low taxes, abundant jobs and warm climate.
But a new study suggests those eager to move should pause before doing so.
According to a ConsumerAffairs ranking In a survey of all states evaluated based on factors such as cost of living, economy, education, health, quality of life and safety, Texas is the third worst state to move to in 2024, only behind California and New Mexico, and ahead of Louisiana and Alaska.
Factors responsible for Texas’ low rating were health, education, affordability and safety, while the highest-rated states were Utah, New Hampshire and Idaho.
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Not a single Southern state made the top 10.
Health and education were the areas that affected Texas the most, ranking last among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The three measures used to evaluate health and education were percentage of population with insurance, high school graduation rate, and quality of health care, with Texas ranking last, second to last, and bottom fourth, respectively.
Affordability was determined based on regional price parity, median household income and average annual property tax, with Texas ranking 41st.
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In terms of safety, which includes property crime rate, violent crime rate and ratio of police officers to population, Texas ranked 38th.
The state ranked 37th in economics, which takes into account poverty rate, population growth, unemployment rate and home values.
In contrast, Texas scored highly in quality of life, which includes quality of roads, climate and percentage of people who use public transportation to get to work, with Texas ranking 16th.
The state’s poor showing in this analysis contradicts the trend in migration, as the state has remained one of the most sought-after states in the country for its abundance of jobs, warm climate and low taxes.
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According to the Census Bureau, more than 9 million people migrated to Texas between 2000 and 2022, more than 3 million more than Florida, which came in second.
About 29% of its population growth since 2000 has been due to net domestic migration and 22% to net international migration, most of it to the metropolitan areas of Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
Texas will average more than 400,000 new residents a year between 2000 and 2022, the most in the country by a wide margin.
A previous study by ConsumerAffairs Over the period from January 2023 to March 2024, Texas ranked fifth in net migration behind only North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee.
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