With May being Military Appreciation Month and the U.S. planning to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan this year, the personal finance website WalletHub Monday released its report on 2021’s Best and Worst States for Military Retirees and ranked Virginia number one among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
To determine the best and worst states for military retirement, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions: 1) economic Environment, 2) quality of life and 3) health care.
The website then evaluated those dimensions using 30 relevant metrics. Among those metrics were the state tax on military pensions, the job opportunities for veterans, military bases and installation per 100,000 veterans, the total VA expenditure per number of veterans, the presence of state help for returning veterans, the presence of academic credit for military service, the share of homeless veterans, the number of VA health facilities per number of veterans, the quality of the VA hospitals, and the veteran suicide rate.
Virginia’s ranks in some of the key metrics were 1) veterans per capita — third; 2) percentage of homeless veterans — second; 3) veteran job opportunities — fourth; 4) housing affordability — 30; 5) percentage of veteran-owned businesses — third; 6) number of VA benefits administration facilities per number of veterans — seventh; and COVID-19 positive tests in the past week per capita — 16.
States two through ten ranked by WalletHub as the best places for military retirees were South Carolina, Florida, South Dakota, Alaska, Alabama, Maryland, Wyoming, Missouri, and New Hampshire.
