10 Best States To Be Married With Kids During Biden’s Presidency

From a financial standpoint, Americans have seen the good, bad and ugly during President Joe Biden’s term in office. The economy has shown resilient growth, unemployment is low and the stock market has done well. But inflation hit its highest point in more than four decades under Biden, and high interest rates have made it difficult for many Americans to finance mortgages — and even cars.

Check Out: I’m an Economist — Here’s My Prediction for the Working Class If JD Vance Is Vice President

Read Next: 7 Reasons You Must Speak to a Financial Advisor To Boost Your Savings in 2024

These negative trends have been particularly hard on married couples with children because of other events during the Biden presidency. The expanded child tax credits approved during the COVID-19 pandemic expired three years ago and attempts to revive it have fallen short. Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt – which would have given a big financial boost to many parents – was struck down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But skyrocketing inflation has probably been the biggest financial headache. According to a recent analysis from Forbes, inflation rose a staggering 19% during the first 42 months of Biden’s. Annual inflation peaked at 9% in 2022 — the highest rate since the early 1980s.

Things have drastically improved since then, with the current inflation rate sitting at about 2.9%. But while that represents significant progress, it’s still well above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%. Meanwhile, many consumers continue to struggle with high prices for household essentials, gasoline and other consumer goods.

Learn More: These Are America’s Wealthiest Suburbs

Biden Economy Showing Mixed Results

As previously reported by GOBankingRates, Biden has largely depended on Federal Reserve interest rate hikes to tame inflation. That policy has been effective in bringing prices down, but many households are still struggling to get by.

In truth, there’s not a whole lot the president can do to take inflation, according to some experts.

“The president has very few levers. And in this particular case, the administration has not been an important driver of inflation,” Betsey Stevenson, public policy and economics professor at the University of Michigan, told The New Yorker.

Biden could have eased gasoline prices by opening up more land for oil and gas drilling, but a cornerstone of his administration has been to promote green energy and reduce fossil fuel emissions. In terms of food prices, the biggest problems — such as supply chain and production issues that first took hold during the pandemic — are largely out of the president’s hands.

New Study Suggests Some Areas Flourishing

On the bright side, some parts of the country have seen costs of living go down during Biden’s presidency, according to a new GOBankingRates study.

The study analyzed each state’s cost of living indexes using data from the Missouri Economic and Research Information Center for each quarter from Q1 2021 to Q1 2024. GBR then looked at national average expenditures for various demographics as sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey.

The average cost of living for married couples with kids during the first quarter of 2024 ranged between a high of $3,765 per month in Hawaii to a low of $2,476 per month in Arkansas. Based on real dollars, those numbers represent little change from the first quarter of 2021, when Hawaii still ranked as the most expensive state ($3,916 a month) and Arkansas ranked as the least expensive ($2,645).

Here’s a look at the 10 best states for married couples with children during the Biden presidency, based on the average cost of living from Q1 2021 to Q1 2024:

Those state rankings largely aligned with the biggest cost-of-living decreases across all categories — including for households with retirees, single people and millennials. The same 10 states landed at the top of the rankings, though the order wasn’t exactly the same.

Here are the states with the biggest cost-of-living increases under the Biden administration:

1. Idaho: $130

2. Massachusetts: $123

3. Montana: $117

4. Virginia: $102

5. South Dakota: $88

High inflation likely would have been a drag on Biden’s re-election prospects had he not dropped out of the race earlier this summer. That doesn’t seem to be a big problem for his replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris. A separate GBR survey of 1,004 U.S. adults found that Harris has a slight edge over former President Donald Trump, her 2024 opponent, when it comes to who they think will do a better job of handling inflation. Here are those results:

• Harris: 43.63%

• Trump: 39.44%

• Either: 2.99%

• Neither: 7.87%

• Don’t know: 6.08%

_{Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. For more coverage on this topic, please check out 10 Best States To Be Single During Biden’s Presidency.}

More From GOBankingRates

• 7 Reasons A Financial Advisor Could Boost Your Savings in 2024

• 7 Fall Essentials To Buy at Dollar Tree To Save Money

• 6 Strategies Anyone Can Use to Pay Off Debt

• The 6 Most Harmful Myths About Debt -- and The Surprising Reality

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 10 Best States To Be Married With Kids During Biden’s Presidency