These Are the Best—and Worst—U.S. States for Retirees Based on Health Care, Wellness, Safety and More

There is plenty of guidance out there about the best places in the United States—and even around the world—for retirees to spend their golden years.

The lists typically consider important factors like cost of living and housing. But if health care and overall wellness are top of mind, there is a list for you as well.

Scholaroo, a platform that helps students find scholarships, analyzed data for all 50 U.S. states to create a list of the best states to retire in 2023, based on five categories:

• Health care
• Wellness
• Safety
• Affordability
• Entertainment

The health care category considers the quality of public hospitals, the number of retirement homes available per capita, life expectancy and more. "Wellness" focuses on things like air quality, food insecurity for the elderly, access to nature and climate change. 

Surprisingly Florida, a destination for American retirees, didn't make the top 10.

Here are the states that topped the list, and the states that landed at the very bottom.

Top 10 best states for retirees based on health care, wellness and more

1. Connecticut
2. Pennsylvania
3. Massachusetts
4. North Carolina
5. New Hampshire
6. Virginia
7. Minnesota
8. Ohio
9. Indiana
10. Michigan

Connecticut snagged the top spot, largely because it has more than 100 parks that retirees can spend time in, which increased the state's wellness ranking.

But Connecticut also has one of the lowest percentages of uninsured seniors (3%) when compared to other U.S. states.

At No. 2 is Pennsylvania where there are no taxes on retirement income for its residents. The "Keystone State" has many nursing homes that retirees can settle down in, and ranks high for its large number of geriatric health providers.

Massachusetts is the best state for health care in the country. "It has the lowest percentage of uninsured over 65, a large number of nursing homes, as well as good hospice care," according to the blog.

These are the worst states to retire based on health care, wellness and more

But some states didn't rank as high as others. Here are the bottom 10 states for retirees.

1. New Mexico (#50)
2. Alaska (#49)
3. Wyoming (#48)
4. West Virginia (#47)
5. Mississippi (#46)
6. Oklahoma (#45)
7. Vermont (#44)
8. Montana (#43)
9. Louisiana (#42)
10. Kansas (#41)

New Mexico and Alaska's high violent crime rates and low hospice care quality landed the two at the bottom of the list.

Coming in at No. 47 and 48 on the overall list are West Virginia, with the poorest quality of public hospitals compared to the rest of the country, and Wyoming, which has the worst elderly food insecurity of all states.

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