Retirees Can Live On Social Security Alone In This State Out West (But Only If You Don't Have A Mortgage)

With the cost of living growing ever higher, it isn't easy for the 21.8 million retirees who, according to a report from The Senior Citizens League, rely solely on Social Security benefits for income. That's especially true in the western U.S., where the average retiree can spend well over the national average of $22,216 per year on housing, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Indeed, the West Pacific states of California, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii are among the five most expensive states to live in for both retirees and working people.

But a new report from Realtor.com lists ten states where retirees can get by on Social Security alone, at least when it comes to housing costs such as utilities, insurance, and property tax. One of those places is Nevada, a state bordering California known for its casinos and deserts as well as its various test sites where hundreds of nuclear weapons were detonated from the 1950s to the 1990s. Nevada also happens to be famous for being the home of Area 51, a highly classified base that has captured the attention and imagination of UFO enthusiasts for decades.

Without mortgage bills or rent coming due, housing costs in Nevada are reduced to $423, a figure that includes property taxes, utilities, and insurance. For a Nevada retiree who receives the state's median Social Security benefit of $1,841 a month, this means an annual surplus of $432 each year, per Realtor.com.

A major factor that informs Nevada's affordability is the state's effective property tax rate of around 0.5%, the fourth lowest in the U.S., according to Rocket Mortgage. The Silver State also has the sixth lowest average insurance premium of $89 a month, per Bankrate, which is all well and good considering that Nevada's median Social Security payment is lower than the nationwide average of $1,976 reported by the Social Security Administration in January 2025. 

But once a mortgage or monthly rent payment enters the mix, Nevada starts to get pretty unaffordable for retirees dependent on Social Security. The average monthly mortgage for a Nevada home in 2025 is $2,345, per Rocket Mortgage. As for renting, the average monthly rate as of October 14, 2025, is $1,900, according to Zillow Rentals, about 3% higher than the national average.

Without substantial savings, retiring with a mortgage will be very hard to swing if Social Security checks are your only income. According to Realtor.com, mortgages helped push homeownership costs up 26% between 2019 and 2025.

But mortgages were not the only cause of high homeownership costs. Insurance rates, property taxes, and utilities have climbed so high that Realtor.com predicts Social Security alone won't be enough to cover them in 40 other states, even without a mortgage. It will be particularly difficult in the Northeast, where the annual shortfall for seniors relying on Social Security will average $8,088 in Vermont, $7,512 in New Jersey, $7,345 in Massachusetts, $7,248 in New York, $6,564 in New Hampshire, $5,436 in Connecticut, and $4,164 in Rhode Island, per Realtor.com.

But retirees who do earn money outside of Social Security can take solace that they'll qualify for new senior deductions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act championed by President Donald Trump. Unfortunately, those tax cuts are expected to hasten Social Security's insolvency and lead to even smaller Social Security payments after 2032, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.