Florida topped out as the No. 1 state to retire in WalletHub’s annual ranking for 2018. The Sunshine State also held the No. 1 spot in 2017.
The “2018’s Best & Worst States to Retire” report compared all 50 U.S. states across 41 indicators, spanning the cost of in-home care, life expectancy and cost of living, among other factors.
Florida also typically sits near the top of states by Home Equity Conversion Mortgage endorsements; during the 12 months ended September 2017, Florida was in second place with 3,705 loans, according to data from Reverse Market Insight. That’s slightly ahead of Texas with 3,217, and well behind California’s 10,197.
The top 10 states to retire for 2018 by WalletHub’s overall rank were:
1. Florida
2. Colorado
3. South Dakota
4. Iowa
5. Virginia
6. Wyoming
7. New Hampshire
8. Idaho
9. Utah
10. Arizona
When it came down to the cost of in-home care, Louisiana and Alabama ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively for the lowest annual cost. Louisiana also had the lowest median yearly cost for elderly housekeeping at $34,320, 1.9 times lower than North Dakota, which had a median yearly cost for such services of $63,972.
Louisiana and Alabama, however, ranked No. 44 and No. 41 overall as retirement destinations.
West Virginia was No. 3, Mississippi No. 4, and Arkansas and North Carolina tied for the rank of No. 5 for lowest yearly cost of in-home services. Mississippi had the lowest adjusted cost-of-living index for retirees, at 84.91. That’s 2.2 times lower than in Hawaii’s index of 185.73, which was highest.
Ranked by best health care, the top 10 states were:
1. Minnesota
2. Colorado
3. Hawaii
4. New Hampshire
5. Massachusetts
6. South Dakota
7. Connecticut
8. North Dakota
9. Iowa
10. Nebraska
Written by Maggie Flynn
