Kansas ranks relatively low in WalletHub Safe States Survey

June is National Safety Month. With the U.S. recently hit hard by tragedies from wildfires to mass shootings, the personal-finance website WalletHub on Tuesday released its report on 2019’s Safest States in America.

“Kansas ranked 39th,” said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez. “It was down toward the bottom specifically when it comes to emergency preparedness and workplace safety.”

Part of the low emergency preparedness ranking has to do with the prevalence of natural disasters.

“We looked specifically at the number of natural disasters causing over $1 billion in damages in the past decades,” said Gonzalez. “That’s looking all the way back toward 1980.”

Not all of the areas are doom and gloom, however.

“It did a lot better when it comes to road safety and financial safety,” said Gonzalez. “Looking back toward the Great Recession, we included everything from the share of the uninsured population to unemployment rates, poverty rates, percentage of adults with rainy day funds. That’s where Kansas actually does quite well.”

Kansas highest individual rank was in road safety. It was the 12th safest state by that measure.