Why you don’t want to have a baby in New Jersey — it isn’t just $
If you’re thinking about having a baby in New Jersey, you may want to start saving now.
Actually, you may have wanted to start saving back when you were a baby.
A new WalletHub study ranking the best and worst states to have a baby puts New Jersey at 24th out of 50 states and Washington, D.C. That’s not exactly a win, but at least it’s also not the bottom of the barrel.
And here’s the interesting part: it’s not just the money.
WalletHub looked at 31 different measures involving cost, health care, baby-friendliness and family-friendliness. New Jersey’s overall score was 54.33.
Our biggest problem? The cost category.
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New Jersey ranked 45th in the country for cost, ahead of only California, New York, Florida, Alaska, Texas, and Washington. Hospital charges aren’t exactly helping. New Jersey is among the five most expensive states for conventional delivery charges and also among the five most expensive for C-section charges.
Because apparently having a baby wasn’t already expensive enough.
But here’s where things get interesting.
New Jersey actually performed very well when it came to infant mortality, ranking second-best in the country. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment. So while you’re paying an obscene amount to bring the baby into the world, at least the odds of that baby surviving infancy are among the best in America.
New Jersey ranked 20th for health care, though, which isn’t exactly stellar.
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The Garden State did better in some of the things that matter after the delivery. It ranked 16th in baby-friendliness and 14th in family-friendliness.
Don’t you have to wonder how much of that is tied to how expensive daycare is here?
So what’s the verdict?
New Jersey isn’t necessarily a bad place to have a baby, but it’s not great either.
