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I am starting this thread for a specific pupose. I did not register with this site to engage in endless opinionated debate or witty repartee, socialize, write lengthy prose pieces (blogs are for that) or to kill time. What I am seeking is information crucial to deciding where in the U.S. a person on a low fixed income can survive. For me, and probably for alot of people like me, "survive" is the operative term. I don't give a tinker's damn about where to find the best "quality of life". What I want to know is: Can I plan on staying in this country for the rest of my life or should I be learning Spanish and preparing to move to the barrios of Managua, Nicaragua?
It's virtually impossible to find anything useful among all the chitchat and interpersonnal fencing that goes on in these threads. It would take forever to read them all and pan for gold. That's why I'm proposing a thread that addresses the necessity for the kind of good hard factual information required to make intelligent decisions on what may conceivably be a life-or-death matter.
I am continually researching this subject in other venues and will post whatever material I've discovered or compiled from various sources in hope that others will do the same.
Here are a few examples of the the kind of subjects I think are appropriate:
Where are apartment rentals the lowest? Seems a simple enough question but when you include the fact that most people on low fixed incomes will probably not be able to afford a car or car insurance then you find that the availability of public transportation becomes an issue. So then the question becomes: Which metropolitan areas with cheap public transportation also have low apartment rentals? But that's just the beginning. Think about Social Security income. Since alot of people's real income has stagnated or declined in the last few decades their Social Security benefits will reflect that. Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is capped at $674/mo. for a single person but the states are free to add to that. California contributes up to $233 while other states require that you be flat on your back in a nursing home before they'll part with a nickle. The question now becomes: Which metropolitan areas in which states provide the best deal in terms of rent, transportation and SSI? Then there's medicaid and food stamps to consider. Once again, these programs are administered by the states and some would rather euthanize their poorest residents than share the wealth. And on and on it goes.
I can imagine a scheme that ranks U.S. cities purely in terms of "survivabilty" for low income retirees. You see these lists in the media of the "Top Ten Retirement Havens" or some such nonsense all predicated on the assumption that money is no object. Maybe that's true for some but the number of people for whom money (or the lack of it) is the overriding determinant of their future situations is growing fast.
So, send me your facts and I'll send you mine (such as they are) and maybe together we can beat this increasingly harsh and hostile system under which we (try to) live.
I guess what I'll have to do is extract information from this into an Excel spreadsheet that ranks the states from most to least generous. That will be one piece of the puzzle.
One piece of the retirement puzzle, but probably not the most important one, is taxation. At www.kiplinger.com there is a tax map for retirees which summarizes each state's tax situation. A few states have no income tax, a few others have no sales tax, some give state income tax breaks to retirees and some do not. It is a complex situation. For example California, a high-tax state, does not tax Social Security benefits, but the sales tax and state income tax on other income is rather high. For those whose income is low, i.e., those for whom this thread is intended, state income tax is probably more or less irrelevant, whereas lack of sales tax may be more important because even the lowest income people spend money on various goods and services.
I think it is generally agreed that rents are lower in smaller towns as compared to cities. Poster Jtur88 lives in Victoria, Texas and pays something like $480 per month rent for a clean, safe apartment (one-bedroom, I think). Perhaps he will post here and correct me if my memory is a little off. When I first read this (his rental amount) I just couldn't believe it, being used as I am to rents in the Los Angeles area. So, as the OP implies, location is everything.
You sound like a rather idealistic chap hoping to find straight answers to your (mine, and thousands of other's) dilemma. It can be a bit frustrating here but remember you are dealing with the *general public* ;-). A certain amount of research is needed to find the helpful posts and responses.
There's government assistance for those whose income is below a certain amount--but what about other of us whose income is just over so we don't qualify? Regardless, many of us are still looking for ways to survive this tough economy.
There's affordable housing in many states, but if I could move (out of NM, the "Land of Entrapment") and I didn't have pets (don't get them if you have low income), I'd look at neighborhoods in Arkansas probably. Having visited there (but hate the humidity) saw some excellent housing prices. The people were friendly and generally seemed like a good place for retirees.
One piece of the retirement puzzle, but probably not the most important one, is taxation.
Thank you. That's exactly the kind of input I was hoping for. Now you've got me thinking about something that, here in Florida, I've not had to think about much since there's no state income tax, I don't own any real estate and the sales tax is tolerable. But, you're right, it's something I do need to start considering.
I would love to live in a small town or way out in the boondocks but there's the problem of transportation. I literally cannot afford a Ford.
I was so pleased to receive something useful that I tried to up your rating but the system said I'd already done that too much and need to spread the praise around.
A certain amount of research is needed to find the helpful posts and responses.
Point taken. There's just so much of it, it's overwhelming. It will take a while but instead of wading knee-deep in the big muddy I am trying to learn the monikers of the most articulate and informed members and follow their posts.
"Land of Entrapment" - I thought I'd made that up. I lived in Albuquerque from '78 to '91. It was a boomin' town back then. Recently I got so sick of the economic situation here in the "Sunburn State" that I went back to New Mexico. I was stunned. It wasn't the same place. The computer and electronics companies are all gone. (I met a guy sweeping the street who used to work at Intel.) You walk down Central Ave. and see all these once-attractive buildings abandoned, fenced-off and burnt-out. The streets are teeming with homeless people. Body-piercing/tatoo shops now seem to be the major industry. I went because the unemployment rate is half of what it is here but then I realized that's because of the Air Force bases, think tanks and weapons labs. Had to give up and return to the Land of Foreclosed Dreams - Florida. My aspiration is to retire to the North. Somewhere idyllic, like Flint, MI or Buffalo, NY.
Last edited by SelflessGene; 10-03-2010 at 03:24 PM..
Reason: spelling mistake
This link will give you some income statistics by state: Income Data - State Median Income - U.S Census Bureau.
I would think the states with the lower incomes would have the lowest living costs and this list might let you narrow the search.
Not having a car is a major problem. Retirees that can not pass a new drivers test have the same problem. Public transpiration in most places is not a good substitute for no car. If you look at a small town, you maybe able to walk (or bike, maybe a three wheel bike) to most services. The town I grew up in had about 3,500 people and you could walk to most places in 15 to 30 minutes.
Once you find a town you can start looking for services. For example I live in an urban area that has door to door pick up for older and disabled persons to help them get to doctors and the supermarket. Some towns also run weekly bus services to stores etc. My point is first try and find the state, then the town, then see if they have the services you need. I would look for the town sponsored senior citizen program and contact them for suggestions. Once you pick the state I would go to the states web site and look for Senior Citizens services. Contact them for help. You can also do the same for your home state. You could also try the web sites for Counties within the state. Since you are in Florida I think I would stick with that state and start looking for a town that meets your needs. The North will be a bigger problem for transportation due to ice, snow and the cold than I would think the south.
YOU ARE PRETTY MUCH GOING TO HAVE TO RESEARCH THIS YOURSELF. Most of the discussion here is ABOUT CHIT CHAT and the quality of life. People here are not going to be able to tell you the cheapest place in the world to live, since the people with the lowest possible standard of living don't own laptops and regularly "work" the internet.
You need to find some place which is very depressed and where most people don't want to live. When you find this place, you will find structures which few people want to buy and they will be cheap. You will also find that there will be very low taxes because there are hardly any services. Don't expect classy senior centers or stuff like that. An alternative is very very cheap housing in cities. However, these places will also be very dangerous to live in, especially for an elderly person.
These places will be very far from metropolitan areas. There wil be very little to do because places where there is lots to do are places where everyone wants to live, and thus the laws of supply and demand will raise the costs.
You will need to cut your expenses to the bone, so until you reach 65 there will be no health services, but even when you do, it will be hard to get health services because you will be very far from any.
You choice will have to be someplace in the southwest because you will not be able to afford heating costs in the winter, though it will be hot, you can just take off more clothes rather than use air.
Its going to be hard. I would recommend that you consider learning Spanish, because if you are looking to stretch your dollar to the max you will need a third world country where the dollar is worth a huge amount. I'm not sure whether you are one of those people who lost everything in the current market because you didn't start putting it all in Treasuries when you turned 50 or whether you are one of the people for whom getting older and needing to retire at some point in the future was something that only happened to other people.
In any case, it would be helpful if you could share more of what you consider to be your income during your retirement.
I would think the states with the lower incomes would have the lowest living costs and this list might let you narrow the search.
Thanks for the link and all the other good ideas.
I'm also looking for facts about which cities are losing population the fastest on the assumption that apartment rentals in those places would be more of a buyer's and less of a seller's market. Have to be careful here though because cities like San Francisco, CA are losing population because so many people can no longer afford to live there while cities like Rochester, NY (my home town) are losing population because the manufacturing base (Kodak, Xerox, Bauch & Lomb) has been wiped out by those wonderful free trade agreements so popular with the globalists.
Florida is a nogo because this state was one of the top contenders in the Housing Bubble. As the housing prices soared most of the apartments were converted to condos. When the bubble burst and housing prices plummeted, apartment rents stayed high due to their scarcity. In this town you can get a converted one-car garage for $600/mo. if you're lucky.
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Don't mind talking to myself if necessary ...
