AARP Hearing Center
The 10 States Where Social Security Goes the Furthest
See how retirement benefits stack up to cost of living where you live
Key takeaways
- Living costs vary widely by state, as do average Social Security retirement benefits. Having a sense of how those two figures compare can help your retirement planning.
- In general, Social Security goes further in states where the cost of living is relatively low and incomes — the basis for calculating benefits — are relatively high.
- In 2025, benefits went furthest for retirees in Indiana, West Virginia, Alabama and Michigan.
Social Security was never intended to match earnings from your working days. On average, retirement benefits replace about 40 percent of a retiree’s work income — more for people who worked in low-wage jobs, less for those with more lucrative careers.
But many retirees do rely on Social Security to cover a significant share of their day-to-day expenses. Among Americans 65 and older, 42 percent of women and 37 percent of men get at least half their income from the program, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA).
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
Join Our Fight to Protect Social Security
You’ve worked hard and paid into Social Security with every paycheck. Here’s what you can do to help keep Social Security strong:
- Sign the pledge: Vote for candidates who will protect and strengthen Social Security.
- Find out how AARP is fighting for Social Security now.
- Get expert advice on Social Security benefits and answers to common questions.
- AARP is your fierce defender on the issues that matter to people 50-plus. Become a member or renew your membership today.
Having a sense of how your benefits compare with your costs is crucial to sound retirement planning. It’s a key piece of data in deciding when to retire and determining how much you’ll need from other sources — such as savings, a pension or part-time work — to cover the rest of your bills and give you the financial freedom to pursue the retirement you want.
The first step to building a comprehensive retirement plan is looking at your “full balance sheet,” including savings and property, and lining that up against the lifestyle you want to have, says Brian Ford, founder and CEO of Red Diamond Wealth in Duluth, Georgia, an affiliate of Northwestern Mutual.
“Where Social Security comes in, of course, is figuring out the sweet spot of when [to] hit the ‘on button’ to activate that income stream,” he says.
Of course, living costs vary widely depending on where (and how) you live. “Deciding to retire, let’s say, in Manhattan versus Des Moines, Iowa, the cost of living is going to be dramatically different,” Ford says, and you need to run the math based on your desired retirement destination.
It isn’t just living costs that vary regionally. Social Security retirement benefits can also differ significantly from one state to the next, from an average of $1,814 a month in Mississippi to $2,196 a month in Connecticut as of December 2024, according to the most recent SSA data available.
Everyone’s situation is different, and there are wide variations in income and costs within states as well as between states. But in general, Social Security benefits go further in states where relatively low living costs meet relatively high incomes, lifetime earnings being the prime factor in determining someone’s monthly benefit.
We did the math to provide a broad sense of how far benefits go to cover basic expenses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using SSA payment information and cost-of-living data from the Elder Index, a tool developed by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston that measures how much income older Americans who are aging in place need to meet their basic needs. Here are the 10 states where benefits go the furthest (you can check the numbers for your state on the map above or the charts below).
What the numbers mean
The Elder Index uses federal data on costs for housing, health care, food, transportation and other essentials such as clothing, phone service and household products. It estimates monthly expenses for Americans age 65 and over based on where they live, household status (single or couple), overall health (poor, good or excellent) and housing situation (renter or owner). Spending on recreation, entertainment and gifts is not included, and the index does not account for state income and sales taxes.
For this article, we used the 2025 cost-of-living figures for a single retiree in good health in each of the index’s three housing categories: renter, homeowner with a mortgage and homeowner without a mortgage.
For the map and top 10 table, we averaged those three numbers in all 50 states (plus D.C.) and compared them with the average Social Security retirement benefit to show how far benefits go toward covering costs. (The benefit figures reflect the 2025 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, which was applied to December 2024 payments.)
In Indiana, for example, the average monthly benefit of $2,034 amounted to 87.2 percent of basic expenses in 2025. (Where do benefits stretch the least? Washington, D.C., at 58.9 percent.)
The table below shows how far the average benefit goes for a single person in good health in each of the three housing categories — someone who rents, has a mortgage or lives in a paid-off home. (You can scroll through the listings using the bar on the right and click at the top of each column to reorder the table based on the data in that column.)
You can use the Elder Index to tailor cost-of-living estimates to your situation (for example, if you live with a spouse or have serious health issues) and drill down to county-level data. The index offers people a “bare-bones” measure for retirement expenses, says Caitlin Coyle, who produces the data tool as director of the Gerontology Institute’s Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging.
“It does not include going out to dinner. It doesn’t include traveling to see your grandchildren. It doesn’t include an unexpected flood in your basement,” Coyle says. But it can give people a good baseline for thinking about the kind of life they want in retirement and stacking it up against their assets and income, she says.
Coyle notes that for renters and homeowners with a mortgage, there’s no state in the country where the average Social Security payment is enough to cover the basic costs included in the index. Higher living costs in 2025 were primarily driven by increased housing expenses, she says.
Ford says some retirees are happy to accept a higher cost of living if it means being close to family. Most people look at a “melting pot” of factors when deciding where to retire, from the proximity of grandkids to the weather, he says.
Coyle says her own parents, who are retired and living in Ohio, used the Elder Index to see if it would make sense for them to move to Massachusetts to be closer to her. The result? “Their level of [financial] security in Ohio doesn’t translate to Massachusetts,” she says, so they are staying put.
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
More From AARP
Estimate Your Social Security Benefits
When to claim and how to maximize your payments
The Top 10 States for Retirement Moves in 2025
Florida led the nation in the number of people ages 65-plus moving in — and moving out
How does Social Security calculate the COLA?
Understanding Social Security's COLA calculation process