Best and worst states for military retirees

By John S. Kiernan

Retirement is typical viewed as the end of the line, a time for rest, relaxation and the pursuit of interests long ago put on the back burner. But the narrative is far different for many military retirees.

For starters, the average officer is only 47 years old, 43 for nondisability enlisted personnel, upon retirement from service. All military retirees deal with the trails of reassimilation to civilian life, which have proven especially difficult for some veterans in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of those who reenter the job market face tough challenges during the transition, and rising numbers of young vets have encountered hardship and homelessness.

As such, military retirement can be a far more complicated issue than one might initially assume, given the extent to which state tax policies differ when it comes to military benefits, the relative friendliness of different job markets to veterans, and a variety of other important socioeconomic factors.

With that in mind, WalletHub’s analysts sought to help ease the burden on our nation’s military community by identifying those among the 50 states and the District of Columbia that are most conducive to a comfortable military retirement. There data set 20 key metrics ranges from “Number of veterans per capita” to “number of VA health facilities per 10,000 veterans” to “job opportunities for veterans,”

Alaska, South Dakota and Montana are the top three states for Military Retires while Oregon, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the worst. Wisconsin ranked 27th on the list, while Minnesota placed in at number 34.

Alaska has the highest percentage of veterans with ten percent, while Virginia has the lowest percentage of homeless veterans.

New York has the highest number of VA facilities per number of veterans.

Maine has the highest percentage of the population aged 40 and older while South Carolina has the highest percentage of veteran-owned business with paid employees.