TEXAS — While Texas consistently ranks high for things like the job market and its robust economy, the Lone Star State appears to lag for keeping its residents safe.
WalletHub this week published a report called 2024’s Safest States in America. Texas didn’t fare well. Only two states, Mississippi and Louisiana, ranked lower.
The study’s authors compared the 50 states across 52 key metrics. That included everything from assaults per capita to the total loss amount from climate disasters to the unemployment rate.
Texas’ overall rankings are:
- 33rd – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
- 32nd – Assaults per capita
- 41st – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita
- 30th – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time Workers
- 36th – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
- 18th – Law-enforcement employees per capita
- 31st – Sex offenders per capita
- 50th – Share of uninsured population
Some of what hurt Texas includes the destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl and its high number of uninsured residents.
Beryl slammed into Texas in July, knocking out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses and killing some people.
Houston took a hard hit as CenterPoint Energy reported more than 2 million homes and businesses without power in and around the nation’s fourth-largest city. At least two people were killed when trees fell on homes. A third person, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, was killed when he was trapped in flood waters under a highway overpass.
Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country. Last year, according to reporting by the Texas Tribune, the state stripped Medicaid coverage from more than 2 million people, mostly children.
WalletHub identified the safest states in 2024 as follows:
- Vermont
- New Hampshire
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Utah
The Associated Press contributed to this report.