These Are The Best US States For Retirement

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These Are The Best US States For Retirement

What is the most important aspect of retirement planning?

If you said finances, you’re probably right. But have you ever thought about where the best place is to retire? Being strategic about location can make a big impact on your quality of life, and perhaps help your savings go just a bit further.

To help break it down, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized data from personal finance platform, WalletHub, which ranked the best U.S. states for retirement as of 2023.

Data and Methodology

WalletHub ranked each state using 47 metrics across three dimensions.

  • Affordability (7 metrics worth 40 points)

  • Quality of Life (22 metrics worth 30 points)

  • Health Care (18 metrics worth 30 points)

Here are some examples of what each dimension measures:

  • Affordability: Cost of living and taxation

  • Quality of Life: Quality of elder-abuse protections and crime rates

  • Health Care: Number of health professionals per capita and life expectancy

Visit the source for the full list of metrics.

The final scores (visualized as the bars in the infographic above) represent each state’s weighted average across all metrics. See below for more comprehensive results.

Rank State Score Affordability
(rank)		 Quality of Life
(rank)		 Health Care
(rank)
1 Virginia 57.6 16 11 11
2T Florida 57.4 9 4 28
2T Colorado 57.4 14 27 5
4 Wyoming 55.6 5 9 38
5 Delaware 55.5 6 33 18
6 New Hampshire 55.0 31 5 7
7 South Dakota 53.6 25 30 9
8 Minnesota 53.5 40 2 1
9 Idaho 53.2 15 17 31
10 North Dakota 53.0 22 25 20
11 Utah 52.7 20 24 26
12 North Carolina 52.6 12 23 35
13 Missouri 52.4 17 28 32
14 Pennsylvania 52.3 36 3 12
15T Montana 52.1 24 15 29
15T South Carolina 52.1 4 38 39
17 Massachusetts 51.9 47 1 2
18 California 51.6 32 19 10
19 Alaska 51.3 26 36 8
20 Arizona 51.1 18 35 25
21 Wisconsin 50.9 34 14 17
22 Alabama 50.7 1 44 50
23 Ohio 49.8 27 8 37
24 Hawaii 49.7 38 29 4
25 Nebraska 49.3 37 16 15
26 Iowa 48.9 35 12 24
27 Georgia 48.6 7 40 42
28 Michigan 48.0 29 18 36
29T Maine 47.5 43 6 13
29T New Mexico 47.5 21 46 30
31 Indiana 47.3 23 31 40
32T Nevada 47.2 11 42 41
32T Tennessee 47.2 2 48 45
34T Vermont 47.1 48 7 6
34T Connecticut 47.1 44 26 3
36 Kansas 46.8 30 32 33
37 West Virginia 46.4 3 43 49
38 Oregon 46.1 41 21 21
39 Texas 45.9 28 37 34
40 Rhode Island 45.0 39 39 14
41 Arkansas 44.7 8 49 44
42 Maryland 44.6 46 20 19
43 Washington 44.5 45 13 23
44 Illinois 44.3 42 22 27
45 Louisiana 43.9 13 45 47
46 New York 43.7 50 10 16
47 Oklahoma 43.6 19 47 43
48 Mississippi 40.8 10 50 48
49 New Jersey 40.2 49 34 22
50 Kentucky 38.8 33 41 46

According to this methodology, Virginia is currently the best state for retirement. Although the Southeastern state does not excel in any one dimension, it scores consistently well across all three to create a very balanced retirement profile.

This gives it a slight advantage over second place Florida, which excels in quality of life and affordability, but falls further behind in terms of health care. Third-placed Colorado is a mirror of Florida, offering excellent health care but a lower quality of life in comparison.

How to Interpret These Results

It’s important to remember that this ranking is purely based on data and the methodology above, and may not be tailored to your individual preferences.

For example, if you believe that health services will be very important during retirement, you may rank Minnesota (#1 in terms of health care) much higher than eighth place.

You may notice that prioritizing one dimension will often come at a trade-off in others. Looking at Minnesota once more, we can see that the state is also one of America’s most expensive.

Looking to retire outside of the U.S.? Check out this graphic on the top 25 countries to retire in.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/08/2023 – 05:45


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