Which are the best, worst states to retire to? (Hint: Neither is California, by these rankings)

The statistical geeks at WalletHub, Bankrate and Kiplinger’s recently took their respective shots at measuring how each state compares in terms of livability factors for your retirement years: from costs to culture to that critical aging issue, healthcare.

Let’s politely say the conclusions varied.

So who’s correct? Who do you trust? Retirement choices are no small matter.

Let me take a literal middle ground by considering their collective wisdom. As a public service, my trusty spreadsheet helped me combine this trio of retirement location rankings to give a better picture of the varying strengths vs. weaknesses of the states.

I reassembled their published ranking data — overall scores, subindex grades and related data — into three evenly weighted metrics: costs (buying power); character (culture and climate); and care (healthcare and healthiness). What did I learn?

Florida is the place to retire, statistically speaking to my composite index. It ranked No. 1 for costs and character. But if you don’t care for humidity, and enjoy winter’s chill, No. 2 was South Dakota, which enjoyed No. 4 grades for costs and care.

Third-ranked was New Hampshire (No. 4 for character; 10th-best for care), then Virginia: (ninth-best for character) and Hawaii (No. 40 for costs but No. 1 for care!)

Conversely, don’t think about Louisiana for your golden years, according to my math. It ranked last in my reassembled scorecard. Why? No. 49 for character and No. 50 for care.

Next worst score was Arkansas (No. 47 for character), then came Kentucky (No. 47 for care); New Mexico (No. 46 for character) and Illinois (No. 41 for care).

What about California? By my math, the Golden State ranked a middle-of-the-pack 26th for one’s golden years. California’s seventh-worst ranking for costs was improved by a No. 16 grade for character and No. 18 for care.

Here is how the 50 states ranked as retirement options in order of my overall scoring then broken down by ranking for cost, character and care quality.

Rank	State	Cost	Character	Care
1	Florida	1	1	2
2	South Dakota	4	20	1
3	New Hampshire	22	4	3
4	Virginia	18	9	6
5	Hawaii	40	8	12
6	Utah	7	33	4
7	Montana	18	18	12
8	Massachusetts	34	4	29
9	Iowa	37	10	8
10	Vermont	50	2	38
11	Colorado	20	28	9
12	Idaho	21	25	5
13	Delaware	12	26	14
14	Maine	48	3	21
15	North Carolina	15	24	17
16	Pennsylvania	31	7	14
17	Arizona	25	20	20
18	Wyoming	5	33	7
19	Minnesota	44	17	23
20	Connecticut	42	6	41
21	Michigan	14	20	27
22	Nebraska	33	27	18
23	Kansas	15	31	23
24	Missouri	7	31	11
25	Wisconsin	46	14	28
26	California	44	16	38
27	North Dakota	37	37	10
28	Alabama	11	44	22
29	Texas	3	40	18
30	Tennessee	1	42	16
31	Oregon	32	19	35
32	Ohio	28	15	25
33	Washington	25	38	29
34	Rhode Island	43	13	45
35	New Jersey	47	11	46
36	Mississippi	9	39	33
37	West Virginia	27	23	41
38	Nevada	5	41	32
39	South Carolina	30	36	29
40	New York	48	12	50
41	Maryland	41	29	49
42	Alaska	15	50	35
43	Indiana	13	42	34
44	Oklahoma	10	45	37
45	Georgia	24	48	25
46	Illinois	35	30	44
47	New Mexico	37	46	47
48	Kentucky	36	35	40
49	Arkansas	28	47	41
50	Louisiana	22	49	48

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