Survey Rates Tampa As Best Place For Veterans To Live

TAMPA, FL — With Veterans Day approaching Nov. 11, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst Places for Veterans to Live, and Tampa tops on the list.

The report compares the 100 largest U.S. cities across 20 key indicators of livability, affordability and veteran-friendliness. They range from share of military skill-related jobs to veteran income growth to availability of VA health facilities.

There are currently 19.2 million veterans in the United States and 1,492,070 of them make their home in Florida with the largest number of veterans settling in the Tampa area.

With more than 98,000 veterans, Tampa and its surrounding Hillsborough County communities have the 27th largest population of veterans in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Hillsborough County also leads the state in veterans' compensation, benefits, medical care and programs including housing, educational, vocational, rehabilitation to the tune of $1.1 billion.

The availability of the veterans programs combined with the lower cost of living, the proximity to services at MacDill Air Force Base and the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, and, of course, the climate, make the Tampa area the top choice for veterans in the country.

Highlights of the WalletHub results for Tampa (1=Best; 50=Avg.)

• 27th – Veteran Population
• 22nd – Homeless Veterans per Veteran Population
• 20th – Median Veteran Income (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
• 40th – Veteran Unemployment Rate
• 1st – Veteran Income Growth

Also ranking in the top 10, St. Petersburg placed 9th on the list of best places for veterans to live.

10 Best Cities in America for Beterans

• 1 Tampa
• 2 Austin, Texas
• 3 Orlando
• 4 Raleigh, North Carolina
• 5 Scottsdale, Arizona
• 6 Colorado Springs, Colorado
• 7 Virginia Beach, Virginia
• 8 Gilbert, Arizona
• 9 St. Petersburg
• 10 Jacksonville

“Ideally, every city would roll out the red carpet for our veterans, given all they’ve sacrificed for cities and citizens all across the country. That’s not the case, however, and it ultimately comes down to prioritization and funding," said WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou. "Some areas simply focus on veterans affairs more than others, and some have the means to make an impact, while others don’t."

WalletHub also released its money-saving selection of 2019’s Best Military Credit Cards, along with the results of its 2019 Military Money Survey, which revealed that almost 200 million Americans agree that military families experience more financial stress than the average family, in addition to everything else they have to worry about when serving our country.