A questionnaire for choosing where to live, now or in retirement.
No questionnaire can choose a home. Family nearby, a job, a doctor you trust, and the feel of a town can matter as much as any number here. What this one can do is narrow the 50 states and D.C. to a few worth a closer look, using published facts about taxes, prices, weather, safety, schools, and more, weighed by what you say matters.
The interactive version asks whether the move is for now or for retirement, then how much each of these matters to you: taxes, the cost of living, home prices, taxes on what heirs receive, weather, snow, muggy summers, natural disasters, city or country, the coast, jobs and pay, public schools, hospital quality, safety, and being near family. It then ranks all 50 states and D.C. with the facts behind every one: state income tax from each state's 2026 brackets, property and sales tax rates, how each state treats pensions, IRA withdrawals, and Social Security, estate and inheritance taxes, prices compared with the U.S. average, NOAA weather averages for each state's largest metro area, FEMA's estimates of natural-disaster damage, the share of residents in urban areas, unemployment, Nation's Report Card test scores, Medicare hospital ratings, and FBI violent crime rates. Where you live now stays on the page, because staying where you are is a real choice too.
General education, not tax, legal, or investment advice, and not a recommendation to move or to stay. Your answers stay in your browser.
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