5 American Cities Where You Can Retire On Just Social Security

By Aaron Crowe on 20 September 2016 5 comments




What Social Security Pays


There are some good options, but before we get to those, let's be a little more generous with the SSA income, based on the government's statistics.

While the average monthly benefit was $1,234, 82% of beneficiaries receive a little more — $1,280 from "Old-Age and Survivors Insurance" SSA beneficiaries. The largest average monthly SSA benefit was $1,348 for retired workers, who made up 67% of the pool.

Assuming you're a retired worker receiving the average $1,348 each month from SSA, that's still a low amount of money to live on each month, considering that a retirement planning rule of thumb is to plan on having 70%–80% percent of your pre-retirement income replaced with SSA, a retirement account, or other form of income in your old age.


For a couple who are both retired, their SSA income would double to $40,440 per year. But for our purposes, let's assume one retiree is living by themselves.


1. Buffalo, New York


2. Johnstown, Pennsylvania



3. Memphis, Tennessee


4. Akron, Ohio


5. Indianapolis, Indiana



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5 American Cities Where You Can Retire On Just Social Security

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Just because everyone is equally as bad off doesn't make the cities a retirement paradise. Ah. The winters in Buffalo. The cultural amenities of Johnstown. The Moral of this story. Save. Invest. Don't let this happen to you.

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I can see why .. who the heck wants to ...

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I've read somewhere that Memphis has either one of the highest crime rate or murder rate in the country. Yikes! And Buffalo, unless you like to shovel several feet of snow each winter. That's the fastest way to die of a heart attack. Indiana and Ohio, uh I don't think so unless you're ready to die from boredom. And isn't Ohio has some of the horrible crimes that made the national headlines? Thanks but I'll save and spend below my means.

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I was born and raised in Buffalo NY.Lived there 37 years till we left for a job.I and my family still miss it everyday and visit whenever we can ,I prefer when there is a lot of snow since I live in Florida and miss the beauty of a snowy white night.Its a GREAT city in so many ways,terrific place to raise kids,since it teaches values.It is culturally diverse like NYC and that is something I miss.I learned about people from all over the world all religion and learned tolerance and mutual love and mutual love and respect .We have beautiful housing ,some of the best architecture in the country downtown ,a gorgeous waterfront with Lake Erie and the Niagra River.Niagra Falls is about 20 minutes from downtown.In the 70s the city handled mandatory integration of the schools by making the schools magnet schoools so people chose to go to schools outside their district and as far as I know their was very little trouble.My children who are not minorities went to inner city schools to great magnet schools and they were actually in the minority literally in those schools but had no problems at all.Almost all of my and my husbands family still live there and we get very sensitive over people putting down our "City Beautiful" .

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I left as part of the the HUGE BRAIN DRAIN which subsequently left the lesser educated and largely NON STRIVERS, consequently resulting in its continuing downward spiral. No it is NOT improving. motto, if something can go wrong it will (and wont be fixed. ) Terrible doctors compared to real cities.misery.