{"id":404354,"date":"2026-08-12T08:26:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T08:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404354\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T08:26:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T08:26:56","slug":"austin-transit-workers-avoid-strike-with-tentative-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404354\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin transit workers avoid strike with tentative deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

After earning its worst-ever<\/a> ranking last year, Texas has improved couple of spots on an evaluation of the best states to live, but it’s still near the bottom of the pack.<\/p>\n

Each year, WalletHub’s analysts compare<\/a> all 50 states using 51 livability metrics to measure their affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Factors that were weighed include the cost of living, homeownership rates, population and income growth rates, wealth gaps, public school system quality, road quality, crime rates, and many others.<\/p>\n

The Lone Star State landed at No. 36 in 2026, making it the 15th worth state to live right now. That’s on par with its 2024 ranking<\/a>, and it’s a two-spot improvement over its 2025 performance.<\/p>\n

While Texas residents can brag about living in a state with the No. 1 highest number of restaurants per capita and the 7th best quality of life in the country, that’s about it. Texas earned middling-to-poor scores among the four remaining livability rankings: safety (No. 33), affordability (No. 35), economy (No. 37), and education and health (No. 40).<\/p>\n

Here’s how Texas fared in other nationwide rankings in the study:<\/p>\n

No. 27 \u2013 Income GrowthNo. 30 \u2013 Housing CostsNo. 39 \u2013 Percentage of Population in PovertyNo. 42 \u2013 Percentage of Adults in Fair or Poor HealthNo. 46 \u2013 Homeownership RateNo. 49 \u2013 Percentage of Population Aged 25 and Older with a High School Diploma or HigherNo. 48 \u2013 Average Weekly Work Hours No. 50 \u2013 Percentage of Insured Population<\/p>\n

Texas has a lot of work to do to improve its livability for all of its residents, but especially for women<\/a>, according to several other 2026 WalletHub studies. Texas is the fourth-worst state for women, the ninth-worst state for working mothers<\/a>, and the seventh-worst place to have a baby<\/a> based on limited access to maternal and pediatric healthcare.<\/p>\n

But the very worst states to live prove that the data could be worse. New Mexico ranks 50th overall, with Louisiana (No. 49), Mississippi (No. 48), Alaska (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46) rounding out the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n

After holding on as the No. 1 best state to live for a few years in a row, Massachusetts now ranks No. 4 and was overtaken by Idaho (No. 1), New Jersey (No. 2), and Wisconsin (No. 3). New Hampshire rounds out the top five best states to live.<\/p>\n

WalletHub’s top 10 best states to live in 2026 are:<\/p>\n

No. 1 \u2013 IdahoNo. 2 \u2013 New JerseyNo. 3 \u2013 WisconsinNo. 4 \u2013 MassachusettsNo. 5 \u2013 New HampshireNo. 6 \u2013 WyomingNo. 7 \u2013 UtahNo. 8 \u2013 MinnesotaNo. 9 \u2013 PennsylvaniaNo. 10 \u2013 Florida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After earning its worst-ever ranking last year, Texas has improved couple of spots on an evaluation of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,5365,11331,5369,26834],"class_list":["post-404354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bus","tag-capmetro","tag-public-transportation","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}