Augusta ranks among WalletHub's worst U.S. cities for women. What is the problem?

Miguel Legoas, Augusta Chronicle
·2 min read
FILE - Madie Snyder (left) and Jazmyn Perdue (right) paint artwork during the Paint and Sip event hosted by Flutterby Studio at Bee's Knees in Augusta on Friday, July 1, 2022. The city was recently ranked among the worst cities for women by WalletHub.
FILE - Madie Snyder (left) and Jazmyn Perdue (right) paint artwork during the Paint and Sip event hosted by Flutterby Studio at Bee's Knees in Augusta on Friday, July 1, 2022. The city was recently ranked among the worst cities for women by WalletHub.

WalletHub published an analysis of more than 180 cities across America to find out who was the best and worst cities for women. Augusta was ranked one of the worst.

The cities were evaluated with 15 key indicators of living standards in order to determine how much each city offers in maximizing the potential of its female residents. According to the site's rankings, the 10 worst were as follows:

  1. Jackson, MS

  2. Gulfport, MS

  3. Brownsville, TX

  4. Huntington, WV

  5. Shreveport, LA

  6. Augusta

  7. Charleston, WV

  8. Laredo, TX

  9. Mobile, AL

  10. New Orleans

Augusta received an overall score of 36.09, largely due to the poor scores it received in health care and safety-related subcategories. WalletHub Analyst Cassie Happe explained that, while Augusta received top marks in women's preventative health care, its overall score was brought down by ranking nearly at the bottom in life expectancy and shares of obese and physically active women.

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According to more detailed data provided by WalletHub, when compared to similarly-sized southern cities like Huntsville, AL and Columbus, GA, Augusta also fell short in areas like women's unemployment rate (where it ranked 177th) and share of impoverished women (where it ranked 160th).

However, in addition to preventative healthcare, Augusta scored comparatively well in women's job security (ranking 43rd) and share of women-owned businesses (ranking 14th).

According to WalletHub, the top 10 cities for women are:

  1. Columbia, MD

  2. South Burlington, VT

  3. Irvine, CA

  4. Fremont, CA

  5. Santa Clarita, CA

  6. Seattle

  7. Gilbert, AZ

  8. Overland Park, KS

  9. Yonkers, NY

  10. Pearl City, HI

WalletHub is a personal finance website that provides consumer tools and a significant amount of industry data. For more info on its stress study, go to wallethub.com.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta ranks among worst cities for women, according to WalletHub