Connecticut is The US’s 7th Best State to Raise a Family in 2026

Maybe I'm a bit biased after surviving 50 years as a resident, but newly released data suggests that Connecticut is the seventh best state in all of the US in 2026 to raise a family.

Get our free mobile app

According to Best & Worst States to Raise a Family (2026) by WalletHub.com, our immediate area of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are three of the Top 10 states for most aspects of raising a family of your own. In order to arrive at their rankings, WalletHub.com compared the 50 states across five key dimensions: Family Fun, Health & Safety, Education & Child Care, Affordability, and Socio-economics. That data was further evaluated using 50 metrics including: Share of families with young children, number of attractions, Pediatricians per capita, Quality of public hospitals, Life expectancy at birth, Violent Crimes per capita, Safety rankings of roads around schools, Graduation rates, Child-care cost, Housing affordability, Separation and Divorce rates, Wealth gap, and job opportunities and job security.

Overall, WalletHub determined that Massachusetts is the top-ranked state in 2026 for raising a family, with the third-best job security in the country, the fifth best water quality, the highest rate of insured children, and the fourth lowest property crime rate. New York ranked at #6 overall, just beating Connecticut at #7.

Connecticut was found to rank #40 in the Family Fun metric, #10 in Health & Safety, #5 in Education & Child Care, and #1 overall in affordability. Before you spit out your coffee while reading Connecticut - The most affordable state to raise a family in 2026, yes, the cost of housing is among the highest in the nation, but we have jobs, and job security.