Illinois did not earn its place at the top of the nation’s most-disliked list by accident.
A full 25 percent of the state’s own residents told Gallup pollsters it was the single worst place to live in America — a statistic that, paired with measurable population flight and widespread national contempt, placed it firmly at number one.
The ranking came out of separate analyses conducted by the World Population Review and Zippia, a job-search platform, each of which built scoring models designed to quantify just how much — and in how many ways — a state can be disliked.
The methodology drew from three distinct sources: self-reported resident sentiment, net population movement, and the opinions of people living in other states. Each factor was scored independently before researchers combined them into a single composite ranking.
Gallup’s survey, which asked respondents to identify the “worst possible state to live in,” served as the backbone of the resident-satisfaction component. Researchers treated that data as ground truth — a direct admission from the people with the most firsthand experience of life in each state.
From there, analysts turned to what they called “foot votes.” Rather than asking people what they thought, researchers examined what people actually did: pack up and leave.
Population figures drawn from the American Community Survey were compared across consecutive years to identify which states were losing residents fastest.
The steeper the population decline, the more it weighed against a state’s overall composite score. Researchers used the two most recent years of available data from the American Community Survey to calculate each state’s rate of change.
“Public opinion from outside a state can play a major role in shaping its reputation.”
The third pillar of the study was reputational — and arguably the most revealing. Researchers asked people across all 50 states to name the state they disliked most.
The resulting map of cross-state grievances, rooted in everything from economic frustration to long-running sports rivalries, determined which states were drawing the most sustained external hostility.
Illinois absorbed punishment from all three categories simultaneously.
Beyond the grim self-assessments from its own residents, the state recorded a population decline of roughly 0.54 percent — a figure representing hundreds of thousands of people who chose to leave.
That combination locked Illinois into first place on the final composite ranking.
1. Illinois — 25% own residents
2. New Jersey — 5 states named it worst
3. New York — 12% own residents
4. West Virginia
5. California — 9 states named it worst
6. Massachusetts
7. Michigan — ~10% own residents
8. Connecticut — 17% own residents
9. Kentucky
New Jersey landed in second place, a result that surprised few familiar with the state’s national reputation.
Five neighboring states independently identified the Garden State as their most disliked neighbor — more cross-state animosity directed at a single state than any other runner-up in the study.
New York followed in third, with 12 percent of residents expressing the view that their state ranked among the worst in the country.
The figure is striking given New York’s global profile, but researchers noted the number reflects real frustration among locals even in places widely celebrated by outsiders.
Massachusetts residents specifically singled out New York as their least favorite neighbor.
West Virginia placed fourth. Its position was not driven by external hostility so much as by a steady outmigration of residents departing in search of jobs and opportunity elsewhere.
Researchers found the population data, more than any opinion poll, told West Virginia’s story most clearly.
California’s fifth-place finish stood out as the study’s most striking result. Nine states identified California as their most disliked neighbor — the highest number directed at any single state in the entire analysis.
No other state in the study drew sustained hostility from that many others at once.
Massachusetts ranked sixth, caught between internal dissatisfaction from its own residents and the resentment of neighboring states pushing its composite score higher. Michigan came in seventh, with close to one in ten residents expressing negative views of their own home state.
Researchers noted that shifting economic conditions and the restructuring of key industries may be fueling Michigan’s internal pessimism. The state’s score reflects a combination of resident disillusionment and population pressures consistent with regions undergoing significant economic transition.
Connecticut produced the study’s most counterintuitive finding. Not a single other state nominated Connecticut as its most hated neighbor — yet 17 percent of its own residents said they disliked living there.
The harshest verdict on Connecticut, researchers concluded, came entirely from within its own borders.
Kentucky rounded out the top ten, named by both Tennessee and Indiana as their least favored neighbor.
Researchers noted that geographic proximity and shared cultural traditions provide no guarantee of goodwill when longstanding state-level rivalries enter the equation.
Colorado emerged as one of the few states to escape external hostility entirely.
No state identified Colorado as its most disliked neighbor — an outcome researchers described as rare in a country defined by fierce regional identities, competitive pride, and accumulated historical grudges.
Researchers attached a caveat to the full findings: appearing on the list does not render a state without value or livability.
The rankings instead reflect a convergence of economic pressure, cultural friction, population movement, and the kind of deep-rooted regional rivalry that has always run beneath the surface of American civic life.
