Find out which are the best places to retire in the U.S.
U.S. News and World Report’s most recent list of the best places to retire in the United States shows that Florida is no longer in first place when it comes to the number of cities that are in the top 10 best places to retire in the country.
Instead, urban regions in Pennsylvania swept the top ranks on the list, with Lancaster winning the number one spot due to its high standard of health care for retirees, favorable tax rates for retirees, and overall high level of resident contentment.
A year ago, the city was placed sixth on the list of the greatest places to retire in the country. This trend toward Pennsylvania may be attributed to the fact that Americans are placing a greater emphasis on the affordability of housing in their senior years. As a result, the housing affordability category is the one that is given the greatest weight in the retirement rankings. The cost of housing is the single largest expenditure for the majority of retirees.
Researchers looked at the top 150 cities, and their scores were based on the weighted average of how many points they got in each of the following six categories:
- Housing affordability (24%)
- Resident happiness (22%)
- Health care quality (16%)
- Retiree tax rates (16%)
- Desirability (13%)
- Job opportunities (9%)
Cities in Pennsylvania claimed five of the top 10 places to retire. Last year, cities in Florida made up eight of the 10 top places on the list to retire.
Here are the top 10 place to retire for 2022-2023:
- Lancaster, PA
- Harrisburg, PA
- Pensacola, FL
- Tampa, FL
- York, PA
- Naples, FL
- Daytona Beach, FL
- Ann Arbor, MI
- Allentown, PA
- Reading, PA
To be sure, Florida remains a highly desirable state for retirees, with a total of nine areas ranking in the top 25 places to retire, according to U.S. News and World report. More than two-thirds (68%) of the top 25 metro areas to retire are either in Florida or Pennsylvania.