If you want to make the most of your Social Security benefits, move to West Virginia, a recent analysis suggests.
A March 3 report from GoBankingRates denotes how much money the average retiree will need to supplement their Social Security payout in every state. To conduct the analysis, the financial service site retrieved average cost of living expenditures as sourced by the Missouri Economic and Research Information Center, and multiplied them by the national average expenditure costs for ages 65 and over to find an average monthly total expenditure. Expenditure costs were added to the average monthly rent cost per state, sourced from ApartmentList.
The average Social Security benefit for retired workers — $1,860.23 — was then subtracted from each state's cost of living and rent sum to calculate the total monthly cost of living after Social Security benefits are used up. Read more about the methodology here.
In these 28 states, Social Security benefits stretch furthest, leaving less than $2,000 in remaining costs after they are used:
- West Virginia — $1,263.60 left over monthly costs after Social Security is used
- Oklahoma — $1,360.22
- Mississippi — $1,387.93
- Kentucky — $1,431.82
- Kansas — $1,450.46
- Iowa — $1,463.10
- South Dakota — $1,473.02
- Arkansas — $1,481.58
- Wyoming — $1,522.23
- Missouri — $1,533.23
- Alabama — $1,543.39
- Michigan — $1,582.54
- Louisiana — $1,588.72
- Indiana — $1,616.58
- Ohio — $1,632.34
- Nebraska — $1,637.89
- New Mexico — $1,661.32
- Tennessee — $1,663.78
- Idaho — $1,723.53
- North Dakota — $1,747.80
- Wisconsin — $1,856.38
- Montana — $1,865.90
- Pennsylvania — $1,871.80
- Texas — $1,880.02
- Illinois — $1,899.06
- South Carolina — $1,921.05
- Georgia — $1,921.49
- Minnesota — $1,952.67