With inflation cooling but still making raising children more costly than usual, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on “2024’s Best & Worst States to Raise a Family.” To determine the best states in which to put down family roots, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 50 key indicators of family-friendliness.
The data set ranges from the median annual family income to housing affordability to the unemployment rate.
The best states for families were, in order: Massachusetts, North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The worst states to raise a family in were Arizona, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Nevada, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi and New Mexico,
Best versus worst takeaways from the survey were:
- Utah has the lowest separation and divorce rate, 1.7 times lower than in New Mexico, which has the highest rate.
- New Hampshire has the lowest share of families living in poverty, 3.1 times lower than in Mississippi, which has the highest share.
- South Dakota has the lowest average annual cost of early childcare (as a share of median family income), 2.5 times lower than in New York, which has the highest.
- Maine has the fewest violent crimes per capita, 7.6 times fewer than in New Mexico, which has the most.