St. Louis and Illinois cities among best in US for retirement, ranking says. Here’s why

Meredith Howard
·3 min read
4

St. Louis is the second-best city in the U.S. for retirees, according to a recent ranking from financial website Consumer Affairs, and a central Illinois city followed closely with a third-place ranking.

The Consumer Affairs report cited cost of living and overall well-being for St. Louis’ second-place performance, along with access to healthier foods, walkability and the percentage of seniors who take advantage of clinical preventive services. The city didn’t perform as well on crime rates and physical inactivity rates.

Here’s more on St. Louis’ performance in the ranking:

  • Portion of population age 65 and older: 15%

  • Violent and property crime rate per 100,000 people: 8,111

  • Portions of households spending more than 30% of income on rent: 47.3%

  • Walk score: 65.5, according to New York University’s Langone Health City Health Dashboard

  • Average temperature from February 2022 to January 2023: 58.7 degrees

  • Overall retirement score: 33.95

The retirement ranking considered factors such as cost of rent, food, utilities and transportation, weather, temperature, walkability and access to green spaces. Other metrics included the portion of the population age 65 and older, crime rates, access to health care and cultural and physical activities.

Consumer Affairs created the ranking by assigning each metric “a positive or negative value and comparing each city to the city with the highest value in the category, which was assigned a score of 10 or -10.” Scores were combined from each category to create the overall score. Each category was given equal consideration except for cost of living, which was given three times the weight.

Champaign, Illinois, landed in the third-place spot with a retirement score of 33.48. Champaign was one of five Illinois cities to land in the top 50 best cities for retirement. Low crime, a high proportion of seniors using preventive care services and walkability helped Champaign achieve its third place.

Best cities for retirement

Here’s how the top 50 best cities for retirement rounded out, according to Consumer Affairs:

  1. Lincoln, Neb.

  2. St. Louis

  3. Champaign, Ill.

  4. Des Moines, Iowa

  5. El Paso, Texas

  6. McAllen, Texas

  7. Green Bay, Wisc.

  8. Jackson, Miss.

  9. Akron, Ohio

  10. Great Falls, Mont.

  11. Minneapolis, Minn.

  12. Topeka, Kan.

  13. Waterloo, Iowa

  14. Iowa City, Iowa

  15. Sioux City, Iowa

  16. Bloomington, Ill.

  17. Cedar Rapids, Iowa

  18. Charleston, S.C.

  19. Corpus Christi, Texas

  20. Casper, Wyo.

  21. Lafayette, La.

  22. Albuquerque, N.M.

  23. Sioux Falls, S.D.

  24. Houston, Texas

  25. Omaha, Neb.

  26. Decatur, Ill.

  27. Kalamazoo, Mich.

  28. Dubuque, Iowa

  29. Lake Charles, La.

  30. Albany, Ga.

  31. Amarillo, Texas

  32. Odessa, Texas

  33. Davenport, Iowa

  34. Las Vegas

  35. Columbus, Ohio

  36. Pensacola, Fla.

  37. Oklahoma City, Okla.

  38. Enid, Okla.

  39. San Francisco, Calif.

  40. Grand Forks, N.D.

  41. Boston, Mass.

  42. Tampa, Fla.

  43. San Diego

  44. Rockford, Ill.

  45. Erie, Pa.

  46. Peoria, Ill.

  47. Buffalo, N.Y.

  48. Lexington, Ky.

  49. Miami

  50. Grand Rapids, Mich.

Despite Illinois cities’ strong performance in the Consumer Affairs ranking, the Land of Lincoln was named one of the worst states in the U.S. to retire by financial website WalletHub.

The WalletHub ranking, which was published in January 2023, ranked Illinois 44th out of the 50 states in this year’s Best & Worst States to Retire ranking. Affordability and taxation rates were among the reasons for the state’s low ranking.

Illinois does not tax forms of retirement income such as 401K plans, individual retirement accounts, traditional IRAs that have been converted to Roth IRAs, the redemption of U.S. retirement bonds and more.