A new report released by WalletHub, a personal finance social network website, is listing its best and worst cities for families in the country.
The study compared the 150 most populated cities in the United States and took into account 30 key metrics broken down into five main categories. They include:
- Family activities and fun
- Health and safety
- Education and child care
- Affordability
- Socioeconomic environment
WalletHub's findings showed that Washington D.C. was one of the worst cities for families – ranking 141st out of 150 cities.
Despite ranking in the top 15 for family activities, the District of Columbia ranked poorly in most categories, including violent crime rate, housing affordability, divorce rate and two-parent families. The city was listed as the sixth worst city in child care and education.
"We looked at this holistically, so we included education, child care costs and crime rate, which unfortunately for D.C. was not in its favor," said Jill Gonzalez, one of the researchers in this study for WalletHub.
Our nation's capital ranked lower than New York, which placed 116th on the list. Gonzalez said New York's public school system performed much better than D.C. and was a large factor in its higher ranking.
"New York has surprisingly low crime rate, ranked 40th, compared to 112th in D.C., so those two things really were the main factors that pulled D.C. down to the bottom of the list," Gonzalez told us.
Jackson, Mississippi ranked as the worst city for families on this list while Overland Park, Kansas finished in the top spot. The rest of the top five include:
2. Plano, Texas
3. Virginia Beach, Virginia
4. Lincoln, Nebraska
5. Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Click here to check out the entire list.