Best States to Retire, According to the Data

Most published 'best places to retire' lists are unfalsifiable. They blend opinion polls about weather and culture with cherry-picked tax statistics, and the rankings shift dramatically year to year as the methodology changes. The Census Bureau publishes the inputs you actually need to build your own ranking — and the answers turn out to be more nuanced than the magazine lists suggest.

Three Census signals that matter for retirees

The first is the share of population age 65+ (Census table S0101). A high share is a soft signal that the state's housing, healthcare, and services have already adjusted to retiree needs — Florida and Maine both sit above 21%, against a national average near 17%.

The second is median household income for the 65+ cohort (B19037). This proxies the local Social Security plus pension and savings reality. It ranges from about $42,000 in Mississippi to about $80,000 in Connecticut.

The third is housing cost relative to that income. Median gross rent in Sarasota, FL is roughly $1,650/month — about 28% of the local 65+ median income. In rural West Virginia rent is $750 against $40,000 income — about 23%. In coastal California the same calculation can hit 50%.

Why the no-income-tax states cluster in retirement rankings

Nine states levy no broad personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire (interest/dividends only), South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming. For a retiree withdrawing $80,000/year from a 401(k), the difference between a 5% state income tax and zero is $4,000 a year — meaningful but not life-changing.

More importantly, these states do not tax pension or Social Security income at the state level. Several other states (Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mississippi) exempt retirement income even though they tax wages — worth knowing.

• No state income tax: AK, FL, NV, NH, SD, TN, TX, WA, WY
• No tax on retirement income: IL, MS, PA
• Highest property tax burden states (matters more for owners): NJ, IL, NH, CT, NY
• Lowest property tax burden states: HI, AL, CO, NV, LA

Healthcare access: the variable most retirement guides skip

Census doesn't publish hospital quality data, but it does publish health insurance coverage by age (B27001) and proximity to medical facilities can be inferred from urban-rural classification. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes hospital-level quality scores you can join to ZIP.

Practical implication: retiring to a beautiful but remote area — northern Maine, western Montana, the Florida panhandle — can mean a 60-minute drive to a Level I trauma center. For retirees with significant ongoing healthcare needs, that matters more than tax climate.

Putting it together

A reasonable composite score gives roughly equal weight to: cost of housing relative to local 65+ income, retiree-population share (proxy for services), and access to high-quality healthcare. By that yardstick the consistent winners are mid-sized cities in Florida (Sarasota, Naples, The Villages), the Carolinas (Asheville, Wilmington), and Arizona (Tucson, Prescott).

Use the City Zip Compare tool to compare any two specific places head-to-head before committing.