Cary, North Carolina, Is the Safest City in America

Economy

Published: October 1, 2016 9:15 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:55 am

24/7 Wall St. has released its annual analysis of The Safest Cities in America. Cary, North Carolina was at the top of the list.

According to the report:

The FBI reported Monday that 1,197,704 violent crimes were committed in 2015, up 3.9% from 2014. While the increase is discouraging, it is by no means a crime wave. Some areas have serious crime problems, but there are a number of U.S. cities where violence is a rare occurrence.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed violent crime rates in major U.S. cities from the FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report. Violent crime includes all offenses involving force or threat of force and are broken into four categories: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. For every 100,000 U.S. residents, 373 violent crimes were committed in 2015.

Regarding Cary specifically:

> Violent crimes per 100,000: 50.5
> 2015 murders: 5
> Poverty rate: 6.7%
> Unemployment rate: 3.8%

No city is safer than Cary, where just 51 violent incidents were reported last year for every 100,000 city residents — a fraction of the national violent crime rate of 373 per 100,000 people. Also, while violent crime is up across the nation, the number of incidents in Cary dropped by 17.3% last year.

In addition to safe neighborhoods, Cary residents enjoy high incomes, low poverty, and a healthy job market. The typical household earns $91,481 annually versus the national median of $53,482. The city’s poverty rate of 6.7% is less than half the national rate of 15.6%. And, 3.8% of the workforce is unemployed, well below the 2015 national jobless rate of 5.3%.

The methodology:

To identify the 25 safest U.S. cities, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed violent crime rates in cities with at least 100,000 people from the FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report released Monday. The total number and rates of murder, non negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, which are included in the violent crime rate, as well as burglaries, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson — all classified as property crime — also came from the FBI’s report. We also considered these data for each year from 2011 through 2015. Annual unemployment rates for 2015 came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Median household income, poverty rates, the percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree, population, and the percentage of adults with at least a high school diploma came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).

Click here to see all of the safest cities in America.

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