Pittsburgh Topped The List Of Retirement Destination Cities
Usually it’s areas outside of cities and metropolitan areas that are the most preferred destinations for retirees, as 26% of Americans who moved for retirement headed to smaller towns and cities far from urban areas.
Still, the city attracting the highest percentage of retirees is in Pennsylvania, and it’s Pittsburgh. (See Figure 4.) Once ranked as the best place to retire by Bankrate for its low cost of living, excellent healthcare system and a significant number of inhabitants age 65 or older, Pittsburgh was the top city destination of choice for 7% of all retirees in the U.S. in 2021.
Three metropolitan areas from Tennessee also made the top 10. Kingsport-Bristol, a metropolitan area in Tennessee and Virginia, was the destination of choice for 3.9% of Americans relocating for retirement. A further 3.5% chose the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro area, while 3% opted for Johnson City, Tenn.
Two Florida metros featured in the top 10 with Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla., and Fort Myers-Cape Coral, Fla., representing the Sunshine State with roughly 3.5% of retirees moving to these metropolitan areas.
It’s worth noting that two of the most popular metropolitan areas for people relocating in retirement were around Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Departed Delaware And Maryland
On the flip side were the states that saw the highest percentage of people choosing to leave when they retired. Twenty-two percent were most likely to leave in both Delaware and Maryland, which made the top of this list. In Utah, which was top of the ranking last year, 19% said they would be retirement defectors. (See Figure 5.)
Following them, a number of states, including Virginia and New Jersey, had 15% of their retirement movers headed outside the state.
Who Moved?
So in the year immediately following the pandemic, which cohorts of senior citizens were the most and least likely to relocate for retirement?
The majority of senior citizens relocating for retirement were men (53% compared with only 47% of women). Married couples accounted for 77% of retirement moves, while only 23% of movers were single (that includes those divorced and widowed and those never married).
An overwhelming majority of Americans moving for retirement in 2021 were white (88%); only 12% of those retiring and relocating were people of color.
Volodymyr Kupriyanov is a data journalist based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Sources and Methodology: Unless otherwise stated, all the data in this study was taken from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and its Annual Social and Economic Supplements for 2021. To calculate the most moved-in and most moved-out states and cities, we took the percentage of all retirees in 2021 who moved or left a state or city. “Early retirees” was operationalized as any retiree younger than 65.