With every new headline about a mass shooting, terrorist attack, hate crime or natural disaster, many of us fear for our safety and that of our loved ones. Just in 2018, the devastating Camp Fire killed 86 people, and hurricanes Florence and Michael took the lives of dozens each. And Louisiana led the U.S. in the homicide rate, averaging 12.4 per 100,000 people. Each state is safe from some dangers but falls prey to others.
Safety is a basic human need. We require some form of it, such as personal and financial protection, in every part of daily life. But we’re likely to feel more secure in some states than in others.
In order to determine the safest states in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 52 key safety indicators grouped into five different categories. Our data set ranges from assaults per capita to unemployment rate to total loss amounts from climate disasters per capita. Read on for our findings, expert insight from a panel of researchers and a full description of our methodology.
