Best States to Raise a Family in 2020

When making the decision to raise a family, some households decide to move to another state for higher-paying career opportunities, quality education, affordable housing, and other factors that are important for a better quality of life. WalletHub recently released a report titled “2020’s Best & Worst States to Raise a Family” to help families pick the best location for their exciting new transition into the next stage of life. 

The report evaluates the 50 states across 50 key indicators of family-friendliness, such as median family salary, housing affordability and unemployment rate. Their five key dimensions were family fun, health and safety, education and child care, affordability and socio-economics. See the list below for the states that had the highest overall rank with these factors in mind. 

Best States for Family

1. Minnesota
2. Massachusetts
3. North Dakota
4. Vermont
5. New Hampshire
6. New York
7. New Jersey
8. Nebraska
9. Connecticut
10. Washington

Minnesota takes the prime spot as the best state to raise a family since it has the highest median salary and ranks highly in terms of health and safety, and education and child care. Other states with the highest median family salary include Virginia, New Jersey, North Dakota and Colorado. 

Another worthy financial consideration is poverty rates, and the states with the lowest percentage of families in poverty include: New Hampshire, Hawaii, Minnesota, North Dakota and Maryland. States with the most affordable housing are Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Kansas. 

Other key findings reveal that Utah, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska and Kansas are the states with the most families with young children. Working parents would be interested to know that Mississippi, South Dakota, Missouri, South Carolina and Arkansas have the lowest child care costs. 

Check out WalletHub’s full report here.