As more Americans take the plunge into early retirement, a new ranking has lined up which states offer the best quality of life for those seeking a home for their Golden Years.

The ranking by WalletHub comes as the Covid and economic disruptions have caused great upheaval in the labor and retirement markets. In the fall, the St. Louis Federal Reserve reported that about three million Americans have retired early because of the pandemic.

WalletHub noted that does not take into account people who are unable to end their working years, even if they want to.

"Not everyone can retire when they want to," the WalletHub report said. "In fact, 27% of non-retired adults haven’t saved any money for retirement, though not necessarily through any fault of their own."

To rank the best places for retirement, WalletHub compared the 50 states across three key categories–affordability, quality of life and healthcare. 

WalletHub used 47 key metrics relevant to retirement-friendliness, including taxes, annual cost of healthcare, share of population aged 65 and older, access to public transportation, museums, theaters, golf courses and Bingo halls per capita, family medicine physicians per capita, home health aides per capita, healthcare facilities per capita and violent crime and property crime rates.

The following states, in ascending order, are WalletHub’s best places to retire:

15. Wisconsin
The Badger State ranked 32nd in affordability, 10th for quality of life and 17th for healthcare.