Just saw this WalletHub ranking of the safest states in USA and honestly some of the results are pretty interesting. Vermont came out on top overall, which caught me off guard - yeah the median home price is around 509k, but apparently it scores really well on financial safety metrics like low mortgage defaults and bankruptcy rates.

What's wild is Massachusetts ranked second even though homes there are pushing 760k. Guess the job security and healthcare infrastructure (lots of EMTs) make up for it. New Hampshire and Maine are also in the top tier - Maine especially if you care about cost of living, since monthly expenses for a family there are basically at the national average despite being considered one of the safest places.

The whole list seems to favor northeastern states, but Utah and Wyoming made the cut too. Utah's interesting because it has some of the lowest traffic fatalities per mile driven. If you're trying to figure out the best states to actually move to, looks like you're trading off between affordability and safety - there's not really a state that crushes both equally.

Minnesota was the only top 10 state with median homes under the national average though, so if that matters to your decision it might be worth looking into more.