Here Are the 10 Best, Worst States to Retire In

Enjoy your golden years
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2020 9:30 AM CST
Here Are the 10 Best, Worst States to Retire In
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/Ridofranz)

When to retire is a big decision, but knowing where to live out your golden years can be just as important. WalletHub wants to help you tackle the latter, and so it set out on a mission to find the best states to retire in, looking at all 50 across nearly four dozen metrics in three main categories: affordability (e.g., the cost of living and how tax-friendly the state is), quality of life (weather, how easy it is to get around town, and museums, golf courses, and theaters per capita), and health care, which includes everything from the number of doctors, dentists, and home health aides per capita to the quality of public hospitals and life expectancy. Maybe not surprisingly, the Sunshine State came in at the top of the list. Read on to see which states are most conducive to a happy retirement, along with their overall scores:

  1. Florida, 63.02
  2. Colorado, 60.99
  3. New Hampshire, 59.25
  4. Utah, 58.33
  5. Wyoming, 58.17
  6. Delaware, 58.10
  7. Virginia, 57.93
  8. Wisconsin, 57.16
  9. Idaho, 56.80
  10. Iowa, 56.70
Read on for the worst states to retire in.

  1. Kentucky, 41.89
  2. New Mexico, 43.33
  3. Rhode Island, 43.39
  4. New Jersey, 45.06
  5. West Virginia (last in the "Health Care" category), 45.38
  6. Tennessee, 45.83
  7. Arkansas (last in the "Quality of Life" category), 47.21
  8. Mississippi, 47.25
  9. New York (last in the "Affordability" category), 47.57
  10. Louisiana, 48.29
Check out how other states fared here. (But where will you be happiest?)

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