Posted on 01/13/2025 4:47:11 PM PST by SeekAndFind
With the cost of raising a child to age 18 reaching well over $300,000, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the Best & Worst States to Raise a Family in 2025, as well as expert commentary, to highlight the states that are affordable, safe, well-educated and enjoyable for families to live in.
WalletHub compared the 50 states across 50 key indicators of family-friendliness. Our data set includes factors like the median annual family income, housing affordability, health care quality, crime rate, and school quality.
| Best States for Families | Worst States for Families |
| 1. Massachusetts | 41. Arizona |
| 2. Minnesota | 42. South Carolina |
| 3. North Dakota | 43. Louisiana |
| 4. Nebraska | 44. Arkansas |
| 5. New Hampshire | 45. Alabama |
| 6. New York | 46. Oklahoma |
| 7. Illinois | 47. Nevada |
| 8. Wisconsin | 48. West Virginia |
| 9. Maine | 49. Mississippi |
| 10. Connecticut | 50. New Mexico |
Best vs. Worst
Massachusetts is the 2nd most expensive state to live in. WalletHub ranked it #1 in affordability. And it ranked 3rd worst in income inequality.
My folks moved to PA so I wouldn’t grow up in NYC. I have since seen for myself what it’s like there — they did the right thing.
The public schools are horrible (I was homeschooled) and the homeschooling laws are downright tyrannical. There’s no beach. Libraries at Bucknell and Susquehanna U are adequate but they can’t compare to Princeton, and I do a heap of research. I don’t like pumping gas and the full service station is virtually obsolete.
OTOH, the state is very gun friendly. Taxes are shockingly low. There’s a decent amusement park not too far away, and a drive-in theater. Few toll roads. Best antique shops in the whole dang country. Some unusual tourist attractions (caves, train museum) and treasures of old architecture. Except for the big cities and the colleges, people are sane and sensible conservatives. Weather’s generally pleasant.
Every now and then I get tempted to move to another state but they all have more drawbacks than PA.
They can’t define a woman, so by extension they sure as **** can’t define a family.
total BS
According to this, only blue states should have families.
Eww. Who’d want to have sex with a blue state woman? LOL.
Gross!
She probably puts sugar in her grits.
‘ Eww. Who’d want to have sex with a blue state woman? LOL.
Gross!’
He man woman hater club member or friend of Dorothy?
I hooked up with a girl from New York one time. She had major bush. No thanks.
yeah i was wrog this time
‘ I hooked up with a girl from New York one time. She had major bush. No thanks.’
Major? I think George W. Bush only made first lieutenant.
Major Bush never made it back from the Brazilian jungle.
Not trying to beat around the bush, or belabia the point,
It should thus be emphasized that many of these criteria - e.g., the "low childhood poverty rate" of Massachusetts - are attributable to underlying factors from which a benefit cannot be extracted by a doughty migrant moving to the given state.
Rather, the state historically attracted people of a certain ilk and/or they became that way after many generations, and your moving there will not instantly make you more like them.
The benefits of the underlying factors cannot be acquired merely by a change of address.
Regards,
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