10 Best and Worst States to Raise a Family

Homebuyers looking at purchasing a new home sometimes look at moving states for a better lifestyle, more affordability or just generally to raise a healthy stable family. According to a WalletHub study, Massachusetts has emerged as the top state to raise a family, while New Mexico has been ranked at the bottom of the list.

WalletHub compared the 50 States across 42 key indicators of family-friendliness for these rankings, with the data set ranging across five key dimensions—family fun, health and safety, education and child care, affordability, and socio-economics.

Minnesota, which was ranked second overall was followed by New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin, New York, Iowa, Nebraska, and California to round off the top 10 states list. Apart from New Mexico, states at the bottom of this list included Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona.

Minnesota also got top marks for highest median family salary, followed by Virginia, North Dakota, Iowa and Wyoming. West Virginia, New York, Oregon, California, and Hawaii were ranked as the top states with the lowest median family salary.

In terms of states with most affordable housing, Iowa topped the list followed by North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas. The states that offered least affordable housing according to the list, included, Oregon, Florida, New York, California, and Hawaii.

Mississippi received high marks for lowest child care costs followed by Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, and Alabama, while Wisconsin, Nevada, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and New York made up the other end of the spectrum of states with the highest child care cost.

The survey also ranked states on the basis of most and fewest families with young children. Utah, Texas, Alaska, California, and Colorado were among the top 5 states with the most families with young kids whereas Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Florida, and West Virginia were states with fewest families with young kids.

In terms of per capita crimes, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Connecticut were states that had the fewest per capita violent crimes. However Louisiana, Tennessee, Nevada, New Mexico and Alaska ranked high on the Most violent crimes per capita index.

To view the entire report and rankings, click here.