Kansas community tops Wallethub survey

The personal finance website WalletHub released its 2019’s Best & Worst Places to Raise a Family this week and a Kansas community topped the list.

“Overland Park came in at number one here overall, we looked at almost 200 cities,” said analyst Jill Gonzalez. “We’ve been doing this study for a number of years now and Overland Park typically finds itself in the top three. When it comes to things like affordability, education, child care, health and safety, it’s really hard to beat.”

Overland Park is also first in the affordability metric in the survey.

“Affordability looks at a number of different things,” said Gonzalez. “Cost of living certainly helps. Housing affordability not only looks at housing cost, but compares that to the annual family income in the area. Right now, you really do get some affordable houses for what people are making. Also, when it comes to overall wallet wellness, we see people with large amounts of money in savings.”

Overland Park is also top five in socioeconomics.

“Socioeconomics really looks at the social ties here,” said Gonzalez. “In Overland Park, there’s a very low separation and divorce rate, which means a lot of two parent families, always helpful. Also, a very low amount of families living in poverty, a great unemployment rate and a very small wealth gap.”

Wichita ranks relatively low in the measurement. It is 155th.