A new survey from WalletHub ranked all 50 states based on five metrics: Personal & Residential Safety, Financial Safety, Road Safety, Workplace Safety, and Emergency Preparedness. 2021’s Safest States in America research found that Texas had a range of pros and cons based on the standards they assessed each state.
One of the metrics assessed that Texas has a high number of murders, nonnegligent manslaughters, forcible rapes, assaults, and thefts per capita.
“Texas doesn’t fare very well when it comes to crime,” said Jill Gonzalez, a WalletHub analyst. “Texas ranked low for the number of mass shootings. It has the sixth biggest number at 97 over the past two years. The number of law enforcement employees could be increased as Texas currently ranks 18th in that category.”
It is worth noting that WalletHub did not define what qualifies as a “mass shooting” in their methodology.
Safety is important because it draws more people, which helps a state’s economy.
“More jobs are created, people start spending the money they earn, they buy homes and thus contribute to boosting the economy,” Gonzalez told Dallas Express.
Though the study placed Texas low on the list overall, it did find that the lone star state excelled in anti-bullying.
Only 14.3% of its high school students were involved in a physical fight on school property, and just 12.2% of high school students were electronically bullied, according to WalletHub data.
“Texas’ low bullying incidence rate, which includes both bullying that occurs on school property and cyber-bullying, is an indication of the efficiency of any anti-bullying policies and measures that are in place,” Gonzalez added.
Texas landed No. 48 on the list of 50 states for overall safety based on the metrics that WalletHub used.
“The ranking indicates that the state and its residents are vulnerable from various standpoints, including personal and residential safety, financial safety, but also in terms of being prepared to deal with climate disasters,” Gonzalez said in an interview. “The state’s vulnerabilities include the large number of climate disasters and resulting losses, as well as the high number of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities.”
Compared to states on the East Coast, Texas is also more vulnerable to danger due to a high COVID-19 death rate, as well as a low number of active firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and paramedics per capita.
“COVID vaccination is important because it can keep people and communities safe from getting sick or even dying from the virus,” Gonzalez said. “Texas ranks in the middle of the pack when it comes to vaccination with 61.4% of the population fully vaccinated against COVID.”
Vermont scored the top spot followed by Maine and New Hampshire.
“Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire scored very high in terms of personal and residential safety,” Gonzalez said. “Neither state has had a terrorist attack in the past ten years and they have few murders and nonnegligent manslaughters, assaults, and thefts per capita. They also have very low percentages of unbanked households, as low as 0.5% in New Hampshire, and small numbers of personal bankruptcy filings per capita.”
Six of the top ten safest states were on the East Coast, such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
“Southern states tend to score lower for financial safety,” Gonzalez said. “They have large percentages of unbanked households and households unable to pay their energy bill, and low shares of households with an emergency fund, below 60%. They also have more climate disasters and rank low in terms of emergency preparedness.”