Safety is about a lot more than just crime rates. Are you safe if your local roads aren’t designed to prevent crashes? If your state lacks emergency preparedness infrastructure should a natural disaster strike? If there isn’t a robust safety net to ensure that your family won’t be out on the street if times get tough?
WalletHub set out to find the safest and least safe U.S. states by looking at more than 50 factors to help determine what makes a place safe to live and raise a family. It grouped its metrics into five categories — personal and residency safety, financial safety, road safety, workplace safety, and emergency preparedness.
Analysts looked at everything from the preponderance of elder abuse to assaults per capita to the share of adults with rainy day funds to the rate of fatal occupational injuries.
“The safest states in America protect their residents from harm in a multitude of different ways, from keeping crime rates low and maintaining safe roadways to having strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said. “They have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too.”
Check out which states WalletHub determined were the most — and least — safe.
