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September 22, 2020 at 11:33 AM
(Related: 12 Best U.S. Cities for Retirement: 2020)
Only 24% of retirement-age Americans in a 2020 survey purported to be very confident that they would have enough money to retire comfortably, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reported in April. Many more were less upbeat about their financial futures.
Some workers will see no option but to remain on the job when others have left the workforce. In 2019, employed Americans surveyed by Gallup planned to retire at age 65, compared with age 60 in 1995.
WalletHub suggests that retiring to a city where the dollar goes farther without sacrificing one’s lifestyle is an alternative for those with less-than-secure financial prospects.
The personal finance website compared the retirement friendliness of 182 U.S. cities — including the 150 most populated ones, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state — across four dimensions: affordability, activities, quality of life and health care.
Researchers evaluated those dimensions using 46 relevant metrics, grading each one on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for retirement. Finally, they determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to order the sample.
Given that cost is a significant factor in retirement, the analysis assumed retirees would rely on a fixed income. WalletHub noted that the lower their expenses, the better retirees will fare in a particular city.
See the gallery for the 12 places that wound up on the bottom of WalletHub’s 2020 list of retirement-friendly cities.
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