New Study Ranks Best States To Retire In--Where's Massachusetts?

I'm sure you've probably wondered at one time or another(especially if you're getting older) where's a good place to retire? Well, according to a new study, parts of New England are excellent places to retire. And Massachusetts looks to be pretty good, as well.

Recently WalletHub did a study on the best places to retire in the United States and some of the findings in the study just may surprise you. Many states in the Northeast are ranked higher than many might have thought.

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As a way to prepare retirees or those planning for retirement find a safe, friendly, beautiful, affordable place to call home, Wallethub compared all 50 states based on 47 measurements within three categories: affordability, quality of life, and health care.

One of the main things to take away from the study? You do not want to retire in New Jersey! The Garden State is ranked 46th for health care facilities per capita and 42nd for adjusted cost of living.

Mississippi is ranked 2nd worst place to retire with New York coming in at #3. On the other hand, in comparison, New England did pretty well with New Hampshire placing the highest, tied with Arizona in 9th place for the best state to retire.

Although it wasn't ranked as high as it could have, Massachusetts at least made the top 20. The Bay State was the second-highest-ranking New England state, coming in 19th place.

Now, think about this: Despite ranking in 19th place, Massachusetts ranked #1 in overall quality of life and #3 in health-care related services. So why didn't Massachusetts rank higher? That pesky "Affordability" category. Massachusetts ranked 45th out of 50 states when it came down to affordability.

Overall, New England states fared pretty well. Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont all ranked in the top 30 best states to retire. Rhode Island fared the worst, coming in at 44th on the list.

I'm sure this is no surprise for many. Florida ranked #1 as the best state to retire and rounding out the top 5 are Virginia, Colorado, Delaware, and Minnesota at #5. For a more in-depth look at the study, check out WalletHub's website here.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.