If you feel especially threatened living in Louisiana these days, your fears are not totally unfounded.
The personal finance website WalletHub listed Louisiana at the very bottom of its study titled 2022’s Safest States in America.
WalletHub compared the 50 states across 53 key measures in the 2022 calendar year. The data set ranges from the percentage of residents who are fully vaccinated to assaults per capita and the unemployment rate.
The study found that the state is last in the country in murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita, 46th in fatalities per vehicle miles of travel, 46th in assaults per capita and tied for last in loss amounts from climate disasters per capita, among other metrics.
The study also lists Louisiana as 47th in the country in percentage of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Adam McCann, author of the study, said COVID remains a major threat to American’s safety.
“Although vaccines have greatly diminished that threat in 2022, there have still been over 204,000 deaths from COVID-19 this year,” McCann said. “To put that in perspective, that’s several times more than the number of motor vehicle deaths (21,000) and non-suicide gun-related deaths (15,200) in 2022 combined.”
The study also listed Louisiana 49th in the country in emergency preparedness and 48th in financial safety.
Rebecca A. Rouse, Associate Program Director for Emergency and Security Studies at Tulane University, said reducing financial risk can go a long way toward feeling more safe in general.
“The internet has plenty of free, digestible, comprehensive financial advice and tools and any financial education or literacy has value in improving our resilience before, during and after a crisis or disaster,” Rouse said. “Financially literate people shop around for fair deals and ensure they have adequate insurance, without being over-insured. They reduce or avoid unnecessary debt, so their credit is improved for buying safe homes or transportation and so they have credit for use after a disaster.”
Vermont was rated the safest state in the country in the study, followed by Maine, New Hampshire and Utah. Mississippi was listed as the second-least safe state in the study, followed by Arkansas, Texas and Alabama.