The four Florida communities on the list include the Village of Golf in Palm Beach County, which ranked No. 2 with a golf course called the Country Club of Florida and a mean retirement income of $158,418. The gated community of Orchid, which is No. 7, features an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course and a beach club, and had retirement income of $126,397.
The richest places on Bloomberg's ranking didn't see an influx of people over age 65 who moved from out of state in the previous year, as many aren't primarily retirement communities, the data show.
A separate ranking comparing places with higher-than average household retirement income that attract the most out- of-state retirees moving in showed Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, at the top. The town had a 1.4 percent increase in 2010 in out-of-state retirees and average retirement income of $43,291.
Retirement Hub
The Villages in Florida, one of the world's biggest retirement hubs, saw a 2.9 percent increase in residents age 65 or older in 2010 from other states, according to Census Bureau data compiled by Bloomberg. The town of about 35 square miles, located between Jacksonville and Tampa and with 39 golf courses, had an average retirement income of $30,608, ranking it 18th out of the top 20.
The second ranking included areas with at least 10,000 residents, with 10 percent or more age 65 or older as of 2010. Bloomberg ranked them by the percentage of elderly residents who moved there in the prior year from out of state and by the highest mean retirement income excluding Social Security, weighting both factors equally to determine the order.