Best Retirement State

I am retired, so should I be thinking about what state I should be living in? One of the best part of the United States is the differences of each state. Taxes, Healthcare, Cost of Living, Climate, Crime, Housing, and Quality of Life are all factors to consider.

I aggregated the data from Moneywise, Motley Fool, Seniorly, Bankrate, Retirement Living, and Wallet Hub to get a better look at where I should consider moving.

Rank	State	AVG	MIN	MAX
1	Florida	11.0	1	41
2	Pennsylvania	11.8	5	20
3	Wyoming	13.2	1	45
4	South Dakota	14.3	5	39
5	Minnesota	15.3	2	27
6	Maine	16.2	2	34
7	New Hampshire	16.5	1	43
8	Wisconsin	16.8	5	36
9	Delaware	17.7	5	35
10	Iowa	18.0	8	27
11	North Dakota	18.2	8	40
12	Idaho	18.3	5	31
13	Utah	19.5	7	39
14	Virginia	21.0	10	41
15	Ohio	21.2	15	29
16	Michigan	21.7	13	32
17	Missouri	21.7	11	32
18	West Virginia	21.7	2	43
19	Montana	22.7	2	47
20	Rhode Island	22.7	6	44
21	Vermont	22.7	4	48
22	Nebraska	22.8	2	46
23	Colorado	23.2	3	37
24	North Carolina	23.3	4	40
25	Indiana	23.7	15	40
26	District of Columbia	25.5	1	50
27	Georgia	25.7	9	48
28	South Carolina	26.2	1	44
29	Connecticut	26.7	13	44
30	Oregon	27.5	14	39
31	Maryland	28.7	3	45
32	Tennessee	28.7	8	43
33	Alaska	29.0	4	51
34	Nevada	30.3	14	46
35	Texas	30.3	6	49
36	Arizona	31.0	18	42
37	Mississippi	31.0	5	48
38	Alabama	31.5	3	50
39	Kansas	31.5	12	49
40	Illinois	31.8	24	38
41	Kentucky	32.5	10	50
42	Massachusetts	33.3	16	48
43	Arkansas	33.5	17	47
44	New Jersey	35.0	9	51
45	Oklahoma	35.5	7	48
46	Louisiana	35.8	23	50
47	Hawaii	36.3	25	50
48	New Mexico	36.3	17	50
49	Washington	38.0	29	47
50	California	39.8	21	49
51	New York	42.0	30	49

What Did I learn? Very little.

The average Standard Deviation was 14.6. An insane number. Usually when I aggregate rankings, there is a good amount of agreement, especially near the top.

Florida was the winner, but it had an average ranking of 11. The District of Columbia was only ranked on two sites, one had them at 1 and the other at 50.

I was also frustrated to see that a state I have considered retiring to, Washington, was the third-worst state and didn’t finish in the top half of any list.

I now know that I need to create my own scoring metric for my unique situation.