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Retiring in the US ยท the 50 states and D.C.

Best states to retire in the US, in tiers

For Americans deciding which state to retire to, and for anyone weighing a US state against a move abroad. We place the 50 states and D.C. in tiers on six criteria, weighted equally: cost of living, taxes on a retired couple, healthcare access, safety, climate and natural-hazard risk. Every figure behind a tier is shown with its source and date.

The 51, in tiers

The 50 states and D.C., in tiers: each criterion turns into a percentile among the states ranked, and the six percentiles are averaged with equal weight (1/6 each). To decide tiers, the ranking is recomputed 2,000 times with every figure that carries a published margin moved within it. A state shares a tier with the leader whenever its range of positions overlaps the leader's, so states inside a tier are listed alphabetically: the figures do not separate them.

Tier 1 3 states

Tier 2 2 states

Tier 3 3 states

Tier 4 5 states

Tier 5 5 states

Tier 6 4 states

Tier 7 4 states

Tier 8 6 states

Tier 9 4 states

Tier 10 2 states

Tier 11 2 states

Tier 12 4 states

Tier 13 1 state

Tier 14 4 states

Tier 15 1 state

Tier 16 1 state

What the tiers cannot see. Four of the six sources publish a single figure with no margin of error: BEA price levels, CMS hospital stars, FEMA's risk index and the climate months. We treat those as exact. So the tiers understate the real uncertainty, and states may be closer together than the tiers suggest.

Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa are not ranked: most of the six sources do not cover them. D.C. is ranked as the 51st unit.