A 2005 survey by CNO Financial Group Inc.'s Bankers Life & Casualty Company unit, which specializes in insurance coverage for elderly customers, listed two Pennsylvania cities--Philadelphia and Pittsburgh--among its top 10 best nationally for seniors. The survey cited Philadelphia's "superb assisted- and independent-living facilities" for helping make the city attractive to older residents.

Those kinds of services helped persuade Pohl, a part-time bookkeeper, and her husband, who also worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp. and then a state liquor store, to stay in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, she said.

Patricia Wilczynski, 67, of Browndale, near Scranton, said she and her husband moved from central New Jersey in the past decade to avoid high taxes and finds "Pennsylvania is good to seniors."

Senior benefits include a reduced $10 annual automobile registration fee and a $250 per-year tax rebate that ultimately comes from casino revenue in the state, she said.

And as retirees, without earned income, "We don't pay Pennsylvania state income tax," Wilczynski said.

Can't Move

The recent drop in housing prices spurred by problems with subprime mortgages also has discouraged some Pennsylvania seniors from heading south, Massie "Hoot" Gibson, a retired Boeing Co. aircraft worker from the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdowne, said in an interview.

"The cost of moving is too high and you can't sell your house," said Gibson, 73. "You fix up your home and you don't want to leave it."

The bulge in elderly residents has some Pennsylvania real- estate developers considering projects for more 55-and-older communities across the state, said Stuart Shapiro, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based lobbying group for long-term care providers such as nursing homes.

"I talked with a developer recently who wanted to push ahead with one of these projects now that problems with the credit markets have eased," Shapiro said. "I think we'll see significant growth in that area over the next decade."

Nursing Home Boomlet