12 Worst States for Retirement: 2024

Forty-six percent of participants in a recent survey conducted by the personal finance website WalletHub were not confident that they would have enough money to retire. WalletHub said this is understandable when 28% of non-retired adults have not saved any money for retirement and Social Security benefits replace only about 37% of the average worker's earnings. More than a third of survey respondents do not have a retirement plan, which WalletHub noted could help put them on the road to meeting their post-work goals. A separate study by WalletHub showed that where retirees choose to live can make their money go further, although there are tradeoffs in many instances. Consider, for example, that in the most affordable state, Alabama, quality of life and health care get dismal scores, while the most expensive state, New York, ranks high in those areas. To determine which U.S. states are best and worst for retirement, researchers ranked the 50 states across these key dimensions:

• Affordability, including adjusted cost of living, retired taxpayer friendliness and annual cost of in-home services and adult day health care
• Quality of life, including share of 65-and-older population, risk of social isolation and availability of museums, theaters, golf courses and bingo halls per capita
• Health care, including family medicine physicians per capita, geriatrician shortfall and top-rated geriatric hospitals

They evaluated those dimensions using 46 relevant metrics and graded each one on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for retirement. See the accompanying gallery for the 12 worst places to retire in 2024, according to WalletHub.