Is Louisiana the Best State to Enjoy your Retirement Years?

To address the elephant in the room, yes I am nowhere near retirement age, but I still like to plan for my future. Financial publisher Bankrate has released a study that ranks each state by how desirable these states should be if you're looking for a place to retire, so where does Louisiana fall in this study?

Bankrate looked into 5 key factors to determine where each state lands on the list, the 5 categories are affordability, quality and cost of healthcare, overall well-being of residents, weather, and crime. The top-ranked state for retirees was Delaware, cited as being a tax-friendly state for retirees. Delaware has no taxes on Social Security benefits as well as no local or state sales tax. Delaware's weakest categories were crime and cost of living, landing as 36th when ranked only by crime rank and 39 when it came to the cost of healthcare.

Louisiana landed at 33rd best place for retirees. Overall Louisiana performed well in the affordability ranking where the boot-shaped state landed at 13th out of 50 for affordability. It gets better for Louisiana when ranked by weather, getting a 4th place spot compared to the rest of the country. Louisiana was hurt by the cost of healthcare and crime rankings, both landing at 48th place of all 50 states. Overall well-being in the state was ranked 39th out of 50.

Last place was Alaska which managed to have a worse crime rank than Louisiana at 49th place, only beaten by New Mexico's 50th place. Alaska landed a 50th place spot in the weather ranking, 41st place in affordability, 44th in cost of healthcare, and 39th in well-being rank.