If you want to stack the odds of a good retirement in your favor, you may want to move to states such as Virginia or South Dakota rather than Florida, according to LPL Financial Inc.
In a new report, LPL ranked 50 states and Washington, D.C., on their attractiveness to pre-retirees. The company looked beyond things like how well retirees are doing financially and peered into each state’s quality of life and health issues.
The study, available here, is unusual because of this holistic approach, which took five other factors besides financial comfort into consideration, according to David Reich, LPL executive vice president.
“Our index is different for two reasons," says Reich. "We are looking at a state’s retirement environment holistically so that an individual can plan for retirement based on the quality of life they are planning for. It gives a comprehensive look so that it can be a tool broadly used in retirement planning, because different people will value a different criteria.
"Then it is also unique because our research team evaluated data relevant to those in the stage of life where they are likely thinking, if not actively planning, on retirement, so that the findings would be most relevant to them,” he adds.
Anthony Valeri, the senior vice president of research at LPL and the study’s co-author, said, “Academics, policymakers and advisors increasingly recognize that retirement readiness includes not only finances, but a broad range of economic and quality-of-life factors.”
The company used six broad categories and ranked states in each: financial well-being; health care; housing; wellness; employment and education; and quality of life in the community.
For a state’s financial well-being, the company considered things such as cost of living, taxes and the stability of the state’s pension fund.
The health-care score encompassed not only the cost of health care but the number of physicians and dentists per 100,000 in a state’s population.
Rental rates and nursing home rates were considered along with home prices for the housing ranking.