WalletHub Names Washington #1 Most Unsafe, but the FBI Disagrees

WalletHub recently ranked Washington as the least safe state in America, it raised more than a few eyebrows.

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But here’s the thing: does the actual data back their claim up? You might be surprised by what I found out.

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WalletHub Based Its Rankings On These Categories

WalletHub says it compared all 50 states using 51 metrics across five categories: Affordability, Economy, Education & Health, Quality of Life, and Safety. Washington ranked ok overall, 36th place, with high marks in 3 of the 5, economy (10th), education (14th), and quality of life (8th).

Then came the ranking of Washington state ranked 50th in safety. So how did they come to that conclusion?

WalletHub’s safety score isn’t just about crime. It also includes data from:

Violent crime rate
Property crime rate
Traffic deaths per capita
Law enforcement officers per capita

Each of these factors is weighted differently, with property crime and police presence counting more heavily on the scale.

The FBI Recently Released Numbers Paint a Different Story

On August 20, 2025, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program released updated data with its Crime Data Explorer. And according to that data, Washington isn’t even close to the most dangerous state in the country.

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States like Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee consistently rank higher in violent crimes, homicides, and assaults. Louisiana, for instance, has the highest homicide rate in the U.S., and Mississippi ranks dead last for road and emergency safety. That is according to the official FBI data.

Washington? It’s not even in the FBI’s top 10 most dangerous states.

So, Why the Discrepancy?

It comes down to the methodology. WalletHub’s broader safety metric includes not just crime, but things like climate disaster losses and workplace fatalities.

That gives a big-picture view of “safety,” but it can easily skew the narrative when compared to traditional crime data used in the FBI ranking.