Massachusetts Ranked #1 For Raising A Family

Where is the best place to raise a family? A new study by Wallet Hub is out with a list that could help you decide where you want to settle down if you're currently raising a family, or plan to in the future.  WalletHub looked at the 50 states and compared them based on 5 factors: Family Fun, Health and Safety, Education and Child Care, Affordability, and Socio-economics.

In the Family Fun category, they included things like: Number of attractions, fitness & recreational sports centers, children who live in neighborhood with a park or playground, number of families with young children.  Some factors included in the Health and Safety category: Pediatricians per Capita, Number of Children's Hospitals, Quality of public hospitals, Infant-Mortality rate, Air pollution, water quality, and more.  In Education and Child Care, factors include: Quality of  public schools, public school graduation rate, child day-care services per capita, child care costs, and more.  In the Affordability category factors include: housing affordability, median credit score, median mortgage debt, median non-mortgage debt, share of people who save money for their children's college education, and more. When looking at the Socio-Economics category, factors include: separation and divorce rate, wealth gap, unemployment rate, job opportunities, share of two-parent families, and more.

There's exciting news if you live in Massachusetts, and some other New England states did pretty well too. Here are the Top 10 States to Raise a Family.