Are Social Security checks your sole source of retirement income?
Retirement often comes with a slower pace of life. No more playing office politics, stressing over work deadlines, or struggling to make ends meet in a city with a punitive cost of living and a soul-crushing commute. The end of your career also brings new questions about how and where to spend your golden years when you won’t be tied to a specific location.
Should you settle in the mountains or by the beach? Do you prefer cross-country skiing or golf? Perhaps most importantly, where do your family, friends, and healthcare providers live? The answers to these where-to-retire questions are deeply personal.
To help you find some objective answers, financial experts analyzed a bevy of statistics on public health, the cost of living, and other metrics.
The average Social Security check is $1,632.04 per month. That’s not enough to live comfortably in most states in America, but Social Security was never supposed to be a retiree’s only source of income. Yet, many seniors live on just Social Security checks — a monthly payment that can’t cover their living expenses in some states.
We identified 10 US states that you can scratch off the list if Social Security checks are your only source of income. Here are the places where Social Security alone won’t pay the bills, listed from best to worst.
I left Taxachusetts 50 years ago. Moved to Alaska!!!! Best thing I ever did. No personal State income tax!!! No State sales tax. Yes it gets cold and dark in winter. But summers are beautiful. Warmth and all the sunlight. It’s home!!!!!! HOME is where you make it. Playing golf at midnight is awesome!!! Each year eligible citizens get a Permanent Fund Dividend check from the State from the oil revenues received from oil revenue taxes. But the best part is the beauty of it all. Hunting, fishing, scenery, the people. It’s just different from the Lower 48!!!!!
That isn’t a picture of Washington. That is Washington, DC. Duh???
You forgot Texas. Even the winter Texans commented on how higher prices are, then at home.
Take me off the Lists!
By the way, Washington D.C. is not in the state of Washington. The Washington Monument shown in the picture is in Washington D.C.