{"id":271337,"date":"2026-02-06T22:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271337\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T22:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:22:09","slug":"best-and-worst-states-to-retire-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271337\/","title":{"rendered":"Best (and Worst) States to Retire in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With 65% of non-retired adults say their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/publications\/2025-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2024-savings-and-investments.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">retirement savings aren\u2019t on track<\/a>, choosing a state to live in during retirement is an important financial decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRetirement is supposed to be relaxing, but it can also be incredibly stressful given that it typically puts people on a fixed income, which may not be enough for them to live comfortably,\u201d said Chip Lupo, an analyst at the personal finance website WalletHub. \u201cAs a result, the best states for retirees are those that have low taxes and a low cost of living to help retirees\u2019 budgets stretch as far as possible. Having access to excellent medical care and homemaking services is also crucial, especially for people who don\u2019t plan to retire in close proximity to their families.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To determine the best (and worst) states to retire, the personal finance website, WalletHub, compared the 50 states across 46 key indicators of retirement-friendliness, including tax rates, cost of living and access to quality medical care and fun activities.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-43973\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/best-worst-states-retire-2026-wallethub.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"589\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Wallethub\u2019s latest study using these metrics found that the <a href=\"https:\/\/wallethub.com\/edu\/best-and-worst-states-to-retire\/18592\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">best states to retire<\/a> (2026) are:<\/p>\n<p>Wyoming<br \/>\nFlorida<br \/>\nSouth Dakota<br \/>\nColorado<br \/>\nMinnesota<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/wallethub.com\/edu\/best-and-worst-states-to-retire\/18592\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">worst states to retire<\/a> (2026), according to the study are:<\/p>\n<p>Hawaii<br \/>\nWest Virginia<br \/>\nMississippi<br \/>\nOklahoma<br \/>\nKentucky<\/p>\n<p>You can view WalletHub\u2019s full rankings and commentary for all states in their study by <a href=\"https:\/\/wallethub.com\/edu\/best-and-worst-states-to-retire\/18592\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">going here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/fedimpact.com\/attend-retirement-workshop\/?utm_source=MFR&amp;utm_medium=Del3&amp;utm_campaign=SetA172B&amp;utm_term=Box9&amp;utm_content=Style20\" rel=\"noopener nofollow sponsored\" class=\"a2t-link\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"money-left-desktop\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/money-left-desktop.png\" alt=\"\"   width=\"728\" height=\"250\" style=\"display: inline-block;\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 With 65% of non-retired adults say their retirement savings aren\u2019t on track, choosing a state to live&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":["post-271337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}