Raising a healthy, stable family sometimes requires moving to a new state. The reasons people choose to move are often similar: career transitions, better schools, financial challenges, or a general desire to change settings.
Wants and needs don’t always align in a particular state, though, WalletHub noted. For instance, a state might offer a low income-tax rate but have a subpar school system. To help with the evaluation process, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 51 key indicators of family friendliness.
The data indicate that Governor Stitt’s goal of making Oklahoma a Top 10 state will be an uphill climb.
WalletHub’s analysis ranked Massachusetts as the best state in the U.S. in which to raise a family. Minnesota came in second; New York, third; North Dakota, fourth; and Vermont, fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nebraska, Iowa and Connecticut.
Mississippi ranked in the cellar, New Mexico was 49th and West Virginia was 48th; Louisiana, 47th; South Carolina, 46th; Alabama, 45th. Arkansas placed 44th and Oklahoma came in at 43rd. Kansas was ranked as the 29th best state in which to raise a family, Missouri was ranked 28th; Texas, 26th; Colorado, 20th. California placed 22nd.
To determine the best states to raise a family, WalletHub compared the 50 states across five key dimensions: 1) family fun, 2) health and safety, 3) education and child care, 4) affordability and 5) socioeconomics.
Those categories were evaluated using 51 relevant metrics, which included:
Share of families with young children, number of public attractions (Oklahoma has 233, ranking us 27th), share of minor children (age 0-17) who live in supportive neighborhoods, quality of public schools, public high-school graduation rate, separation/divorce rate, median duration of current marriage, wealth gap, share of families living in poverty, share of families receiving food stamps, unemployment and underemployment rates, child daycare services per capita, child care costs, share of children aged 6-17 who participate in school extracurricular activities and/or participate in community service or volunteer work, housing affordability, media mortgage debt, share of people who save money for their children’s post-high school education, share of minor children whose family had problems paying medical bills, percentage of workers with paid family leave, job satisfaction score, foreclosure rate, median annual family income, average annual family health insurance premiums, fitness and recreational sports centers per capita, share of minor children who live in neighborhoods with a park or playground, age of residents aged 12 and older who are vaccinated against COVID-19, pediatricians per capita, quality of public hospitals, infant mortality rate, life expectancy at birth, number of climate disasters causing $1 billion+ in damages in past decades (with 97 such disasters, Oklahoma ranked 45th), air pollution, water quality, violent crimes per capita, share of children who attend safe schools, and safety ranking of roads/streets around schools.
Oklahoma’s overall rankings in the five categories were: family fun, 40; health and safety, 48; education and child care, 39; affordability, 31; and socioeconomics, 43.
Data used to create the rankings were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, Child Care Aware of America, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Council for Community and Economic Research, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Partnership for Women & Families, TransUnion, The Pew Charitable Trusts, United Health Foundation, Indeed, U.S. News & World Report, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, National Climatic Data Center, FINRA Investor Education Foundation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kaiser Family Foundation, ATTOM Data Solutions, Brandwatch, Zendrive, TripAdvisor, and WalletHub research.