The top 11 cities for a worktirement – 2017 edition

Derek Miller

Plenty of Americans continue to work after hitting retirement age. Data from the Census Bureau shows that in 2015, 12% of Americans over the age of 70 admitted to doing some work in the previous 12 months. Maybe you’re the type of retiree who wants to stay busy during retirement by working, or you want to supplement your retirement savings. But how do you decide where to settle down? Below we rank the best places for a worktirement.

Worried you’ll have to work past retirement? Our retirement calculator can help you plan.

In order to find the best cities for a worktirement, we looked at data on 389 cities. We analyzed factors like unemployment rate, tax rate, number of medical centers, retirement centers and recreation centers, seniors as a percent of the population, median housing costs and more. Check out our data and methodology section below for more information on where we got our data and how we used it to create our rankings.

This is SmartAsset’s third annual study of the best cities for a worktirement. Check out the 2016 rankings here.

Key Findings

  • Lots of options – The best places for a worktirement are scattered across the country. In fact, in our top 10 only one state, Michigan, is represented twice and just about every region in America is represented.

  • Best to avoid California? – Thanks to higher costs of living and higher taxes in California, the state isn’t the most prime location for retirement. Seven of the bottom 10 cities are in the Golden State.

Data and Methodology

In order to find the best cities for a worktirement we looked at data for 389 cities. Specifically, we looked at data for the following nine metrics:

  • Effective tax rate. To calculate this we used SmartAsset’s tax calculator and plugged in the following variables: $35,000 in income, $15,250 of which comes from retirement income (like a 401k or an IRA), $13,724 from Social Security and $6,021 from work income.

  • Medical centers per 1,000 residents. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2014 County and Zip Code Business Patterns Survey.

  • Retirement communities per 1,000 residents. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2014 County and Zip Code Business Patterns Survey.

  • Recreation centers per 1,000 residents. Data comes from Census Bureau’s 2014 County and Zip Code Business Patterns Survey.

  • Percent of residents who are seniors. This is the percent of residents who are age 65 or over. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Median annual housing cost. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Median household income for seniors. This is the median household income for homes where the head of household is 65 or older. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Senior unemployment rate. This is the unemployment rate for residents age 60 or over. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Unemployment rate. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

First we ranked each city in each metric. Then we found each city’s average ranking giving equal weighting to each metric. We used this average ranking to create our final score for each city. The city with the best average ranking received a 100. The city with the worst average ranking received a 0.

Tips on Saving for Retirement

Saving for retirement can be a daunting task. Here are some tips to make sure your retirement savings keep you going into your golden years.

Start contributing to an IRA as soon as you enter the work force. If you’ve been in the work force for a few years and having started contributing yet, don’t despair. It’s not too late, but you should start doing so as soon as possible. If you have the opportunity to enroll in an employer-sponsored 401(k), do so. If not, you can open an individual retirement account.

Depending on your earning profile a Roth IRA or traditional IRA may make sense for you. A Roth IRA is funded by after-tax dollars, meaning you can withdraw the money in retirement without worrying about paying taxes because you’ve already done so. People often opt for a Roth IRA because they think they will be in a higher tax bracket come retirement time than they are now. With a traditional IRA, you use pre-tax dollars, meaning contributing to it will decrease your tax bite now but you’ll have to pay taxes when you withdraw the money in retirement.

Nick Wallace completed the data analysis for this study.

Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com.

The post The Top 11 Cities for a Worktirement – 2017 Edition appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

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