FLORIDA, U.S. (352today.com) – Another new report from personal finance company WalletHub hit our inbox the other day, and this one’s a bit disconcerting.
According to the data analyzed by WalletHub, Florida is the fourth least safe state in the nation in which to live—which is a not-all-that-much-nicer way of saying it’s one of the most dangerous states in America.
“To identify the most secure states, WalletHub compared all 50 states across 52 key metrics, ranging from assaults per capita and the total loss from climate disasters per capita to the unemployment rate,” read the announcement, in part.
Some of the other criteria analyzed include:
- Fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles of Travel
- Law-Enforcement Employees per Capita
- Assaults per Capita
- Bullying Incidence Rate
- Unemployment Rate
- Share of Uninsured Population
- Total Loss Amount from Climate Disasters per Capita
- Fatal Occupational Injuries per Total Workers
(No, alligators and sharks were not factored in.)
It’s interesting to note that the Sunshine State didn’t appear among the five worst states in any of these metrics. A look across more of the criteria shows Florida isn’t really an extreme outlier in any of the mentioned categories; the three areas in which we performed worst were “Loss Amounts from Climate Disasters per Capita” (45th, which is to be expected from a coastal state), “Share of Uninsured Population” (45th, also predictable given the state government’s antipathy toward the Affordable Care Act), and “Job Security” (42nd, among the other “right to work” states that landed near the bottom of the list).
Which states ranked worse than ours in WalletHub’s analysis? They’re all fellow coastal states: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, in descending order.
The “safest” states on the list? The top five are Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut.
“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,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. “They have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too. In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates.”