Perhaps the beaches of Florida aren’t the best place to retire after all?
There are a LOT of rankings out there related to the best states for retirement. And yet none of them produce the same list. Because of different criteria used, websites produce vastly different rankings. Some lists prioritize climate, others tax rates, others still healthcare costs. Some others having a long criteria list. No two are exactly alike. Further complicating the matter is that while there are hundreds of websites that list rankings, the vast majority of them just reprint a half-dozen or so studies from other websites, but with slightly different framing.
What I haven’t seen, however, is an average of all those rankings. That is what I attempted here. I tried to find as many rankings using original criteria and that ranked all 50 states and DC, and then averaged all those rankings into a new number. This helped to smooth out the varying criteria that can offer wildly opposing results into a more consistent ranking.
Average State Ranking Position Across All Studies Reviewed
1. North Dakota: 9.0
2. Delaware: 12.2
3. New Hampshire: 12.8
4. Virginia: 13.0
5. Iowa: 13.8
6. Florida: 14.4
7. Maine: 14.8
8. South Dakota: 15.0
9. Idaho: 15.4
10. Wyoming: 16.4
11. South Carolina: 19.2
12. Montana: 19.6
13. Pennsylvania: 19.8
14. Nebraska: 21.2
15. Alabama: 21.8
16. Colorado: 22.2
17. North Carolina, Ohio: 23.8
18. Vermont: 24.0
19. Missouri: 24.2
20. Georgia, Minnesota: 24.6
21. Wisconsin: 24.8
22. Tennessee, Utah: 26.0
23. Arizona: 26.6
24. Kansas, Michigan: 27.0
25. Mississippi: 28.0
26. Hawaii, Indiana, West Virginia: 28.4
27. Kentucky: 28.6
28. Oregon: 28.8
29. Arkansas: 29.0
30. Nevada: 29.2
31. Connecticut: 30.6
32. Alaska, Rhode Island: 31.2
33. Massachusetts, Oklahoma: 33.2
34. Washington: 34.6
35. Louisiana: 34.8
36. Maryland: 35.0
37. Texas: 35.6
38. New Mexico: 36.2
39. Illinois: 36.4
40. California: 37.6
41. New Jersey: 38.4
42. New York: 38.6
43. Washington, DC: 42.5
I definitely went into this thinking that Florida, Arizona, Texas and other warm-weather states would all come out near or at the very top, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, the top 25 positions were much more mixed, and the Sunbelt region did not have the most states. Instead, the Midwest led the way with 10, followed by the Southeast with 8, the West with 6 and the Northeast with 5.
If going purely by average score, here is the breakdown of states by region with a score of under 25 versus those with an average score over 25, indicating the line between top and bottom-ranking states.
Score Below 25
Midwest: 9
Southeast: 6
Northeast: 5
West: 4
Score Above 25
West: 9
Southeast: 8
Northeast: 7
Midwest: 4
This all suggests that the Midwest is the best overall region to retire. The cold winters may not be everyone’s favorite, but favorable tax rates, quality of life metrics, low healthcare costs, low housing costs and other metrics make it otherwise a very attractive region. Ohio, too, comes in fairly favorable in the overall rankings, though it seems many retirees don’t consider Ohio or the greater Midwest as a retirement destination, and that’s to their detriment. It all comes down to what individuals prefer and prioritize, of course. The US Census does “Reason for Move” estimates of those people who move from one state or region to another, and they support that most people move for family, employment, education or health reasons. Contrary to popular belief, change of climate is way down at the bottom of the list. Cold-weather states, then, are perhaps just not capitalizing on their own net positives to attract more people.
