20 states that are better than Florida for retirees

19 (tie). Nebraska

19 (tie). Arizona

18. Illinois

17. Arkansas

16. Massachusetts

15. Kentucky

13 (tie). Texas

13 (tie). Maine

11 (tie). New Mexico

11 (tie). Mississippi

10. West Virginia

9. Vermont

8. Missouri

7. Louisiana

5 (tie). Pennsylvania

5 (tie). Alabama

3 (tie). Tennessee

3 (tie). Ohio

2. Delaware

1. Rhode Island

Here's how we created our ranking

To create our ranking, we looked at seven different metrics. We used data for each state and Washington, DC to figure out top states for retirees.

These seven metrics were:

• The share of the population who is 65 and over. We used data from the Census Bureau 2021 one-year American Community Survey.
• The percent change in the population 65 and over from 2019 to 2021. We used 2019 and 2021 one-year data from the American Community Survey.
• Employment in home health care services per 1,000 residents. Employment data is from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages where the most recent month available was June 2022. Since we wanted to look at per capita figures, we used Census Bureau population estimates of the population as of July 1, 2022 with these employment figures.
• Employment in nursing care facilities (skilled nursing facilities) per 1,000 residents. Like employment in home health care, we used June 2022 data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and population estimates as of July 1, 2022 from the Census Bureau.
• The average temperature from December 2017 to November 2022. This data was from NOAA National Centers for Environmental information. For DC, we used the average temperature for Reagan National. For Hawaii, we used the average temperature for Honolulu International Airport.
• The average annual growth in Medicaid per enrollee from 1991 to 2020. This data was available by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
• Regional price parities (RPP) for all items to get a sense of a states' cost of living. We used 2021 data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

We then ranked each state and DC for each metric. Afterward, we took the average of each rank and used that average to determine the best states to retire to.