Pennsylvania Named 6th Best State to Retire

Once again, the Keystone State has been named a top place to retire. WalletHub named Pennsylvania the sixth-best state for older Americans to settle in. 

Each state was scored across three categories: affordability (total weight: 40 points), quality of life (30 points) and health care (30 points).  

Just missing the top five, Pennsylvania scored 60.44 points out of 100 (only 2.32 points lower than Florida, which ranked first). 

Pennsylvania ranked 22nd in the affordability category, which looked at adjusted cost of living, general tax-friendliness, retired taxpayer-friendliness, annual cost of in-home services and more. Affordability is especially important for many future retirees, as WalletHub reports that 66% of non-retired adults say their retirement savings aren’t on track. 

Notably, the commonwealth had the fourth-lowest annual cost of in-home services. 

In the quality of life category, Pennsylvania took an impressive fifth place. This category looked at risk of social isolation, share of population aged 65+, elderly food insecurity rate, access to public transportation, violent-crime rate and more.  

Lastly, Pennsylvania ranked ninth for health care, the category that assessed each state’s number of family medicine physicians, dentists, nurses, home health aides, health-care facilities, quality public hospitals, etc. 

Overall, the scores of the top six states to retire in were close. Although Pennsylvania narrowly missed the top five, it’s clear that the commonwealth offers plenty of benefits to retirees settling down here, especially regarding quality of life and health care. 

WalletHub named the top five states to retire in as follows: 

1. Florida (62.76 points) 
2. Minnesota (62.74) 
3. Colorado (61.71) 
4. Wyoming (60.79) 
5. South Dakota (60.76)