Georgia 9th worst state to raise family, WalletHub says
Low scores in education, child care, health and safety have managed to rank Georgia among the worst states in the country to raise a family.
That's according to analysts at personal finance website WalletHub, who recently evaluated the 50 states based on five key dimensions: family fun, health/safety, education/child care, affordability and socioeconomics.
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They examined 42 relevant metrics for the five categories, including number of family attractions, share of uninsured children, quality of public hospitals, quality of public schools, child care costs, air pollution, wealth gap and median mortgage.
Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale.
Data for the study was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and more.
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With a total score of 63.37 points, Massachusetts was deemed the best state to raise a family, followed by Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Vermont.
New Mexico, which scored 32.68 and ranked dead last for education and child care, was the worst.
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Georgia ranked 42nd on the list (or ninth worst).
Here's more on how Georgia fared:
Total rank: 42
Total score: 40.87
Family fun: 20
Health and safety: 48
Education and child care: 45
Affordability: 32
Socioeconomics: 33
The study highlighted that Georgia has the fourth-highest infant mortality rate
— 7.8, according to the CDC.
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Last year, WalletHub ranked Georgia the eighth-worst state in the country to raise a family.
In 2016, the state ranked seventh worst.
WalletHub has also ranked the state among the worst in the nation when it comes to health care, based on cost, accessibility and outcomes. However, the site deemed Atlanta one of America's healthiest cities.
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10 best states to raise a family, according to WalletHub:
1. Massachusetts
2. Minnesota
3. New Hampshire
4. North Dakota
5. Vermont
6. Wisconsin
7. New York
8. Iowa
9. Nebraska
10. California
10 worst states to raise a family, according to WalletHub:
1. New Mexico
2. Mississippi
3. Alabama
4. West Virginia
5. Louisiana
6. Oklahoma
7. South Carolina
8. Arkansas
9. Georgia
10. Nevada
More about the study and its methodology at WalletHub.com.
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