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.
6 Responses
I would think Pennsylvania should be listed as 1 of the worst states to live in for retirees
PA living is reasonable away from the cities. There is no sales tax on groceries, clothing, shoes, and non prescription meds. Residents of adjacent states travel to PA to buy clothing, shoes, and other untaxed items. Eastern PA residents go to DE to buy other stuff since DE has no sales tax at all. School taxes are high for PA property owners statewide, especially near and in the cities. Really, school taxes should be frozen or reduced for seniors at age 65 but the state legislature “won’t go there”.
The EPA wrecked most heavy industry in PA for the last 54 years and PA has had difficulty recovering lost revenue from manufacturing but continues to spend regardless.
Comments about #3 New York zero in on NYC which is not the real New York. When it comes to New York State “go west young man, go west”. NYC is too expensive plus it’s a rat-infested pit. Go westward into New York and live a much better quality of life. Avoid NYC at all cost!
Western NY born, raised, and educated and lovin’ it.
You forgot IL
If your only source of income is Social Security and you don’t own a home think about a roommate and Medicare does not cover ALL MEDICAL Expenses I get billed for Dr visits
and the rents DON”T have to be that high, greedy landlords,
maybe if heat/ac and lights included