For the second year in a row, Raleigh was ranked as the overall best place for veterans to live in the United States, according to a WalletHub report. Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem came in 26th, 35th, 48th, and 51st overall, respectively.
Greensboro also had the 5th most military skill-related jobs in the country, while Durham was ranked 97th in income growth for veterans.
Austin, TX, Orlando, FL, Tampa, FL, and Virginia Beach, VA, round out the top five. Detroit, MI, came in 100th place.
The personal finance company wanted to see where the best and worst places would be for the over 18.2 million veterans to live across the country. They looked at factors affecting veterans, including a 3.6% unemployment rate (compared to 3.8% for the overall population) and the problem of homelessness for more than 33,000 veterans.
WalletHub compared the 100 largest U.S. cities across 19 key indicators of livability, affordability, and veteran-friendliness. They range from the share of military skill-related jobs to veteran income growth to the availability of VA health facilities.
Raleigh, which came in 54th place for the total veteran population, was named the best overall pick for various factors, including having the fewest homeless veterans of any city in the country. It also came in 5th place for the economy, which measured such factors as housing affordability, median veteran income, and veterans living in poverty. A further breakdown revealed the city came in 44th for housing affordability, 14th for the veteran’s unemployment rate, 9th for median veteran income (adjusted for cost of living), and 23rd for veterans living in poverty.
The City of Oaks came in 12th place for the economy, based on factors like veteran-owned businesses, 13th for quality of life, including current and future veteran population, restaurant, art and entertainment establishments that offer military discounts, but ranked 49th for health, which includes the quality of VA health facilities and VA health facilities per veteran population.
This fall, the Veterans Justice Initiative (VJI) program, developed by veterans service nonprofit the Independence Fund, had an earmark in the state budget to develop an education program for law enforcement agencies and first responders on how to better understand the scope of veterans’ mental health obstacles after they return home from service.
WalletHub also released the results of its 2023 Military Money Survey, which revealed that 52% of Americans think inflation is hitting military families harder than civilians.