Golden State Holds Little Promise For Your Golden Years: Study

LOS ANGELES, CA — More and more Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce for a well-deserved life of relaxation. Whatever the reason for hanging it up after decades of work might be, retirees in every state ought to consider heading to greener pastures. That’s according to the good folks at WalletHub, who recently determined the best and worst cities to retire to in the US.

The report from the personal finance website ranked the 150 most-populated cities in the U.S., plus at least two of the most-populated cities in each state, and ranked them across four key retirement dimensions — affordability, activities, quality of life, and health care.

WalletHub then evaluated those four dimensions using 46 relevant metrics, which included such things as annual cost of adult day health care, public golf courses per capita, and the share of population aged 65 years or older.

California may be the most populous state in the nation, but there aren't a lot of great places for the senior population to settle down here. According to WalletHub, San Francisco is the best city in California for retirees coming in at number 20 nationwide. Obviously, the city by the bay isn't winning any awards for affordability, ramiking 165th nationwide on the affordability metric, but it makes up for its high cost of living with high quality of life including great health care and lots of things to do.

The second best California city to retire to, according to Wallet Hub, is Los Angeles. Like San Francisco, it's not remotely affordable, but it has loads of activities for retirees. It's ranked 43rd nationwide.

San Diego came in at 59. It, too suffers an affordability problem, but that's offset by the high quality of life, Wallethub concluded.

Orlando, Florida, took home the award for the best city to retire to in the nation, with Stockton, California, coming in dead-last overall as a location in which to spend your golden years.
Here are the top 15 cities in the U.S. to retire in:

1. Orlando, Florida
2. Tampa, Florida
3. Scottsdale, Arizona
4. Charleston, South Carolina
5. Miami, Florida
6. Denver, Colorado
7. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
8. Cape Coral, Florida
9. Minneapolis, Minnesota
10. Cheyenne, Wyoming
11. New Orleans, Louisiana
12. Pembroke Pines, Florida
13. Sioux Falls, South Dakota
14. Cincinnati, Ohio
15. Las Vegas, Nevada

Florida was by far the most featured state in the top 15 list with six cities, but Laredo, Texas, actually led the country in lowest adjusted cost of living and the lowest annual cost of in-home service.

More importantly though, Fort Lauderdale led the country in fishing facilities per capita.

According to the study, half of the ten worst cities in which to retire were in California:

173. Providence, Rhode Island
174. Baltimore, Maryland
175. Rancho Cucamonga, California
176. Fresno, California
177. Newark, New Jersey
178. Bakersfield, California
179. San Bernardino, California
180. Warwick, Rhode Island
181. Bridgeport, Connecticut
182. Stockton, California

Overall the California cities that made the list included:

• San Francisco ranked 20
• Los Angeles ranked 43
• San Diego ranked 59
• Sacramento ranked 78
• Glendale ranked 95
• Santa Clarita ranked 98
• Long Beach ranked 100
• Irvine ranked 105
• Garden Grove ranked 115
• Anaheim ranked 119
• Moreno Valley ranked 135
• Fremont ranked 136
• Oakland ranked 140
• San Jose ranked 143
• Santa Rosa ranked 152
• Santa Ana ranked 154
• Oxnard ranked 159
• Ontario ranked 160
• Oceanside ranked 161
• Fontana ranked 166
• Chula Vista ranked 168
• Modesto ranked 171
• Riverside ranked 172
• Rancho Cucamonga ranked 175
• Fresno ranked 176
• Bakersfield ranked 178
• San Bernardino ranked 179
• Stockton ranked 182