The story writer turns to politics and says the downside is if you move inside the U.S. to a lower cost area, you’ll end up in a politically “red” area, which is alleged to be a bad thing:
But there’s a catch: In much of the nation, the political climate in rural regions equals red. The Pew Research Center places rural GOP partisanship at 60%, up from 51% in 2019. On the flip side, urban communities skew 60% Democrat.
Also, using the figures they quote, perhaps up to 1.3% of Americans have retired abroad, same as seen in other posts. Stated another way, about 99% of American retirees remain in the U.S. And from other research, about half of American retirees who retire abroad do so because they either had prior dual citizenship/right of descent ancestry privilege, had family living in the destination country, or they were already living in the destination country at time of retirement as they had been working there for years. Likely owning a home and having established social contacts, they chose to retire where they already lived. This is the case for many Americans who have been working in Canada for years and retired where they already lived – in Canada.
More here on U.S. retirement locations: 15 US states where you can retire comfortably on under $65,000 a year (cnbc.com)