Illinois counties

In a ranking of 3,140 counties across the United States, nineteen counties in Illinois made it into the top 500 healthiest counties in the country, and 3 of them made the top 100. Any guesses on which Illinois counties are making the rest of them look bad?

Illinois is 2nd in the nation in something called "outbound migration," which is just a fancy way of saying "people bolting from your state." While not every single county in Illinois is in a population freefall, these 10, which include counties you're very familiar with, most certainly are.

A lack of job opportunities and access to education are just a few of the factors that make these counties the poorest in Illinois.

Winnebago County is the 7th largest county in Illinois by population, with 283,366 residents, Boone County is 25th, with 53,304 people. Ogle County is 28th with 51,446 residents.

Spoiler alert: It's not Winnebago, Boone, and/or Ogle counties that are looking to leave the state of Illinois, although at one time Winnebago County, Jo Daviess County, Stephenson County, and Boone County all tried to remove themselves from the master list of Illinois counties.

Many of us here in Northern Illinois may be giving our (at this point) substantial mask collections the old heave-ho, but not everyone in the state of Illinois is doing the mask-toss just yet.