Most retirees would likely say yes to retiring in a desert city since these literal hotspots offer plenty of perks like year-round warm weather and resort-style living opportunities. But the biggest hurdle remains affordability especially if you’re on a fixed income. Luckily, an in-house GOBankingRates study has identified 21 desert cities worth exploring if you’re receiving Social Security benefits.
To find these metros, GOBankingRates studied various existing rankings of the nation’s most affordable desert cities from media outlets like Travel + Leisure and NewsBreak. Key factors sourced for each city included the population ages 65 and over, average household income and livability along with the monthly cost of living before Social Security. Then, we subtracted the average monthly Social Security income for a retired worker ($2,075, according to the Social Security Administration) to determine the total monthly cost of living for retirees. The most to least affordable cities ranked accordingly. For the purposes of this piece, we only kept the desert cities with a monthly cost of living of $2,000 or less after Social Security.
Keep reading to see which 21 locales rank as the most affordable desert cities for retirees. Also, find where the 30 safest and wealthiest retirement towns are in the United States…