Easier living
San Antonio gets golden spot among affordable U.S. cities for retirees
Based on one new ranking, San Antonio is — or at least should be — one of America’s retirement meccas.
The ranking, published on Wednesday, March 4, by The Hartford insurance company’s Extra Mile blog, puts San Antonio in sixth place among the 22 most affordable places in the U.S. for retirees. Directly behind San Antonio on the list, in the No. 7 spot, is El Paso. No other Texas city appears in the ranking.
To compile the data, Extra Mile analyzed cost-of-living data from the fourth quarter of 2019 for 266 urban areas in the U.S. In addition, it looked at the typical price of a four-bedroom, 2,400-square foot home.
“San Antonio offers many ways to make the most of your retirement income,” the blog says. “Not only is the city’s overall cost of living 11 percent lower than the national average, but Texas residents don’t have to pay income tax and the state doesn’t tax retiree’s Social Security income.”
From an environmental standpoint, the blog highlights San Antonio’s warm winters but warns about its hot, humid summers. It also points out the city’s variety of health care options, abundant parks and recreation opportunities, and numerous arts and cultural venues. And it notes residents’ strong sense of purpose and community pride.
Ahead of San Antonio in The Hartford’s ranking are:
- Spokane, Washington
- Boise, Idaho
- Salem, Oregon
- Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Tucson, Arizona
As you might imagine, these sorts of rankings can be fickle.
Based on different criteria, U.S. News & World Report placed Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 10 and Austin at No. 11 on its list of the best places to retire in 2020, but it excluded San Antonio.
Meanwhile, Money magazine recently ranked Georgetown, Texas, among the eight best places in the U.S. for retirees. San Antonio was nowhere to be seen.
In yet another ranking, Business Insider assigned San Antonio the No. 12 spot among the 17 most affordable U.S. cities for retirees, along with other Texas cities: El Paso (No. 6), Brownsville (No. 3), and Laredo (No. 1).