If you are a Millenial you should seriously consider living in Illinois according to one prominent website's rankings. So what makes Illinois so great for the group of people in their late 20s to early 40s?

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According to WalletHub.com, Illinois is ranked as the 5th Best State in the country for Millenials this year, behind only Washington in the number 1 spot, followed by Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and Utah. WalletHub ranked the states on a number of different factors, and they say on their site...

"WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine where this generation has thrived and struggled. We examined each state and the District across 34 key metrics, ranging from share of millennials to millennial unemployment rate to millennial voter-turnout rate."

So why does Illinois make it into the top 5 in WalletHub's rankings? Well, they have Illinois ranked as the 2nd most affordable state for Millenials, the 4th best state for education and health, as well as the 8th best state for Quality of Life. There is only 1 category that Illinois ranks poorly in and that is Economic Health, Illinois comes in 46th place in that category... For our listeners across the river well, Missouri the site says isn't as great for Millenials, they rank Missouri 35th on the list, BUT, and it is a big but, Missouri is ranked 1st overall of every state for affordability! To see the full list for yourself just click here!

I got to say, I am a Millenial who lives in Illinois and I do think overall it is a good state for Millenials, but to be fair I wouldn't consider living in any of the places that are higher on the list than Illinois, and actually, I would rather live in Missouri than a bunch of the places they have higher on the list than Missouri. So while the rankings are good, and I believe it is good to know the data behind them, in the end where you live (speaking as a millennial) to me has a lot to do with what you want your life to look like.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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