Retirement can be a difficult transition for military members whether they faced combat or not. Wallet Hub has made it a mission to help ease that burden.

They have compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia using a wide range of data and criteria to find states that offer a relatively comfortable military retirement.

The three major categories in which they compared states were:

  1. Economic Environment
  2. Quality of Life
  3. Healthcare

Within those categories, they considered situations like job opportunities for veterans, state taxes on military pensions, total Veteran's Administration (VA) expenditure per number of Veterans, academic credit for military service, housing affordability, the number of homeless veterans, opportunities for entertainment, art, and recreation.

They also examined the number and quality of VA facilities in each state and much more.

Some of the sources where they collected data included; the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, the Military Officers Association of America, Military OneSource, and many more.

The results of this study for veterans thinking about retiring in South Dakota are good news.

South Dakota came in 8th overall as a best state for military veterans to retire.

Other results were:

  • SD is 3rd in the country for Veteran Job Opportunities
  • 7th for housing affordability
  • 9th in the number of Veterans per capita
  • 12th for quality of VA hospitals out of all 50 states
  • 16th in the percentage of Veteran-owned businesses

To read the complete study just go to WalletHub.

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