Miami Among Worst Cities to Raise a Family, Study Finds

If you are one of the lucky few to find a worthwhile beau in the Magic City, you may want to think long and hard about raising your future family in South Florida.

According to a new study by WalletHub, Miami is among the roughest cities to bring up a family, ranking 156 out of 182 cities in the U.S.

There's no question Miami has beautiful beaches, ample entertainment, and a desirable climate for those who can withstand summer heat better than frigid winters. But after drilling down into the numbers on cost of living and other objective categories, the study found it's a tough city in which to build a family.

To compile the rankings, WalletHub compared cities across five different categories: "family fun," "health and safety," "education and child care," "affordability," and "socioeconomics."

More than 40 key metrics were weighted across the five categories to rank the best and worst spots to start a family. "Family fun" took into account metrics like recreation-friendliness, the weather, and the average commute time. "Health and safety" considered the violent crime rate per capita, family homelessness, and pediatricians per capita, among other factors.

"Education and child care" examined the high school graduation rate, school system quality, and childcare costs. Lastly, "affordability" took into account cost of living, housing prices, and "wallet wellness," while the socioeconomics category included measures like unemployment rate, share of families living in poverty, and the wealth gap.

You may be wondering what's pushing Miami to the bottom of the list. Its unaffordability (shocker) and socioeconomic factors. Out of the 182 cities, Miami ranks at 181 for affordability and 161 for socioeconomics.

Thanks to a post-pandemic real estate blastoff that outpaced the nationwide increase in property prices, the city has consistently ranked as one of the least affordable U.S. housing markets relative to resident income. A RealtyHop review recently placed Miami in second place behind Los Angeles on a list of worst cities for housing affordability.

Miami wasn't the only South Florida city to grace the bottom of the WalletHub's rundown of family-friendly cities. Fort Lauderdale and Hialeah are ranked at 161 and 168, respectively.

Miami and Hialeah were among the five cities with the lowest median family salaries while Hialeah had the lowest playgrounds per capita of the 102 cities with available data. Miami's health-and-safety and family fun rankings were 62 and 75, respectively.

But the Magic City does have one positive going for it, according to the study. The city's education-and-childcare ranking falls within the top 20 out of the 182 cities on the list. 

Fremont, California topped the overall rankings with Overland Park, Kansas, and Irvine, California rounding out the top three for best cities to raise the fam. Pembroke Pines is Florida's highest ranked city at 40 on the list, with Tampa and Orlando not far behind.