This Is Lower Merion And Narberth

Serving the Main Line Community

Looking For A Nice Place To Retire? How About Pennsylvania?

by

If you are thinking about where you’d like to enjoy your “sunshine years,” according to MoneyRates.com, you could do a lot worse if you chose to stay in Pennsylvania. They formulated their list using an ultra-precise four-part criteria, based on:

  • Economy
  • Crime/Safety
  • Lifestyle
  • Healthcare

Pennsylvania, according to MoneyRates.com, ranked as the 13th best state in the U.S for retirees. If we could have only nudged past Utah in 12th place, Pennsylvania would would have secured its spot in the top quartile. Still, it’s quite flattering to know that 37 states, at least according  to this source, are worse places to retire than in our own back yards.

Pennsylvania Welcomes You

Bankrate.com also ranked the states in terms of best to worst places to retire. Their criteria were –

  • Affordability (40%)
  • Wellness (20%)
  • Culture (15%)
  • Weather (15%)
  • Crime (10%)

According to Bankrate.com, Pennsylvania finished a respectable 12th in the Crime category, 14th in Culture and 17th  in Wellness.  But Weather (30th) and Affordability (35th) sunk us to an overall 26th place, according to Bankrate.com.

Last month, after evaluating 150 cities in all 50 states, U.S. News and World Report listed their top 25 cities for retirees.

Pennsylvania dominates the list with seven cities – well that is – if you exclude Florida, which had 11 cities on the list (Sarasota, Naples, Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Tampa, Fort Myers, Port St. Lucie, Pensacola, Lakeland, Ocala and Orlando). 

Lancaster, PA

According to U.S. News and World Report, Lancaster is the best city in Pennsylvania in which to retire, and is ranked 6th among all cities in the U.S. VisitLancaster.com

The Pennsylvania Seven were – Lancaster (5), Allentown (11), Harrisburg  (13), Reading (15), York (17), Philadelphia! (19) and Scranton (21).

The other 48 states had a combined seven cities on the U.S. News and World Report List. They were – Ann Arbor, Michigan, Asheville, North Carolina, Knoxville, Tennessee, Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Manchester New Hampshire and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

U.S. News used these criteria for their rankings –

  • Housing affordability
  • Happiness
  • Desirability
  • Retiree taxes
  • The job market
  • Access to quality health care