During Veterans Month, see how your city stacks up on livability after military service

2021-11-30T12:49:53-05:00

Congratulations if you’re a Veteran living in Tampa: WalletHub ranked your city the number-one best place to settle after military service.

How did 99 other cities stack up in areas such as access to meaningful employment, affordable health care and housing, and other characteristics likely to benefit you in your post-military life?

During Veterans Month this year, check out your city’s rank on WalletHub’s list of “2021’s Best & Worst Places for Veterans to Live,” which came out Nov. 1.

The personal finance information website developed the rankings by comparing census, economic, housing and other data from the largest U.S. cities across four categories: employment, economy, quality of life and health.

Within those broad areas, researchers looked at 20 metrics such as highest share of military skill-related jobs, Veteran income growth and housing prices, number of Veterans per 1,000 residents and family- and retiree-friendliness, and percentage of people who are fully vaccinated and quality of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health facilities.

Ranking livability, affordability and Veteran-friendliness

Evaluators graded each metric on a 100-point scale and arrived at a weighted average across all metrics to determine each city’s score and rank. The resulting scores reflect an overall indicator of livability, affordability and Veteran-friendliness, WalletHub says.

The top-five-ranking cities for Veterans were Tampa (1, with total score of 71.38); Austin, Texas (2, 71.20); Scottsdale, Arizona (3, 69.85); Raleigh, North Carolina (4, 69.82); and Gilbert, Arizona (5, 68.37). WalletHub ranked the worst cities for Veterans to live as Detroit (100, with a total score of 28.05); Newark, New Jersey (99, 31.95); Memphis, Tennessee (98, 38.25); Baltimore (97, 40.21); and Jersey City, New Jersey (96, 40.80).

Seeing a more nuanced picture

However, a closer look at certain cities’ rankings paints a more nuanced picture. Take Toledo, Ohio, and San Francisco.

Toledo is considered among the worst places for a Veteran to live, ranking 95 out of 100 cities and receiving an overall score of 43.08. San Francisco ranked 32 and, with an overall score of 57.42, was in the top tier of cities for Veterans to call home.

Yet isolating just the “economy” category — which factors housing affordability, Veteran income growth, share of Veterans living in poverty, Veteran educational opportunities, median Veteran income and homeless Veterans per 1,000 Veterans — Toledo skyrockets to 19th best of the 100 cities while San Francisco nosedives to almost dead last, or 99 worst of 100.

Why? Among the reasons is that WalletHub calculated that Toledo had the least number of Veterans who are homeless for every 1,000 Veterans while San Francisco had the most Veterans per 1,000 who lacked housing. Toledo likely scored higher on other metrics within that category as well.

At rank 31, Fremont, California, topped the list for the city with the highest percentage of jobs that related to military skills and, perhaps not surprisingly, the East Bay city also boasted the fewest number of Veterans in poverty. But the 97-ranked Baltimore shot up to fourth among cities with highest number of military skill-related jobs.

One livability metric not assessed in the rankings is a Veteran’s distance from a VA health care facility. This is an important consideration in the transition from military life, according to one of several experts quoted by WalletHub.

“Veterans are at higher risk for a variety of mental and physical health disorders compared to the general population such as post-traumatic stress disorder and hepatitis C,” said Kevin Griffith, assistant professor with Vanderbilt University’s Department of Health Policy. “Distance to private medical centers is a nice second best, but many Veterans believe that VA doctors are better for mental health issues, such as combat survivor’s guilt.”

Learn more

Review WalletHub’s “2021’s Best & Worst Places for Veterans to Live”: https://rly.pt/BestWorstCities

Best & Worst Places for Veterans to Live

Response by SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth made Nov 30 at 2021 1:01 PM

2021-11-30T13:01:05-05:00

Thank you Maj Private RallyPoint Member for the interesting information compiled, if I was to rate the city that I live near, it wouldn't rate very high.

Response by SrA John Monette made Nov 30 at 2021 1:07 PM

2021-11-30T13:07:15-05:00

Congrats Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen !!! Tampa is #1.

Response by SPC Margaret Higgins made Nov 30 at 2021 5:51 PM

2021-11-30T17:51:10-05:00

Maj Private RallyPoint Member Ma'am my city stacks up after my military service.