CNBC recently released its annual ranking of states for “quality of life,” crowning Tennessee dead last in the country. Even worse than Alabama. Don’t panic and start planning a move from East Tennessee to somewhere truly idyllic, like Detroit or Baltimore. The CNBC piece says much more about CNBC than it does Tennessee.
CNBC scored states across the following categories: crime, air quality, healthcare, childcare, worker protection, inclusiveness and reproductive rights. Perhaps I’m a tad cynical, but this survey seems it might be a conclusion in search of supporting data. My quality-of-life survey would have also included factors like nature amenities (boating, fishing, hiking, parks, etc.), taxes, commute times, household income adjusted for purchasing power, underemployment, percentage of substandard housing, utilities reliability, climate, and population density.
Tennessee received a CNBC demerit for state lawmakers’ childish dig at “Pride Month” by declaring June as “Nuclear Family Month.” Proclamations such as this are stupid and a waste of legislative effort, but I’m not sure that the Nuclear Family Month diminishes anyone’s quality of life, including members of the LGBTQ+ communities. I’m not gay, black, or Irish, but the quality of my life isn’t diminished by Pride Month, Juneteenth, or St. Patrick’s Day. My guess is that most Tennesseans aren’t even aware that we just celebrated Nuclear Family Month, so it is unlikely to have caused too much distress.
You can manufacture almost any conclusion you want by fiddling with the formula. Want California to win? Weight climate, tech jobs and access to the Pacific Ocean heavily. Want to push California down the list? Assign greater weight to college football national championships and Dollar General stores per capita. Choose different categories and Tennessee can look like either a paradise or post-apocalyptic wasteland. The CNBC ranking was not a neutral scorecard; it was an editorial judgement dressed up as objective analysis.
If Tennessee is truly so horrible, why are people voting for the Volunteer state with their feet and wallets? Since 2020, Tennessee has experienced one of the highest rates of net migration in the country, ranking seventh in percentage of net inflows. In 2025, the state was ranked fourth nationally in absolute gains, outpacing even much larger Texas.
Who is losing population? Seven of the ten highest ranked states on the CNBC quality of life list have experienced net population outflows in the past five years. While CNBC believes that the quality of life in New Jersey, Minnesota, Connecticut and Massachusetts is among the best in the country, apparently the people who live there don’t agree.
Rankings can be engineered to produce almost any conclusion. But people vote with their feet, and the moving trucks on I-40 are telling a very different story than this CNBC scorecard.
David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.