Carroll County is a good place to retire -- the second-best county to do so in Maryland, in fact -- according to a new ranking by financial analysis website http://www.smartasset.com.

After combining the four measures of median household wealth, cost of living, Social Security income and income tax as a percentage of gross income into a Retirement Readiness Index, Carroll scored a 62.60, behind first-place Howard County with 74.54 and ahead of Calvert's 59.74.

Carroll also ranked 44th nationally, according to SmartAsset Managing Editor AJ Smith.

"It really has to do with a combination of factors; being able to save for retirement and having enough to be able to spend in retirement," she said. "It depends on how much Social Security income you will have and the cost of living in your area."

The average cost of living necessary to cover the basic necessities in Carroll County, according to SmartAsset, is just under $23,000.

Many Carroll residents are well prepared to take advantage of that low cost of living because of the way they've prepared for retirement, according to Tyler Pearson, a financial adviser with Edward Jones in Westminster. He said there are cultural factors that SmartAsset could not take into account that give Carroll retirees a real leg up.

"The things that are good about Carroll County ... is saving money is something we value here. Being willing to work every day and saving a portion of your money," he said. "The clients I have that will never run out of money even if they live to 500 are people that never made extravagant fortunes; they are people that lived within their means and invested year after year for their whole lives. That's your stereotypical lifelong Carroll County resident."

Things are a little less certain for younger people in Carroll, Pearson said, if just because the nature of work and retirement have changed so the past few decades, most notably with the near disappearance -- with few exceptions -- of the pension retirement tool.

"A lot of my older clients ... are going into retirement with Social Security and they have a pension from their employer where they probably worked for more than 20 years," he said. "Whereas for younger people it's a different work environment. They change jobs eight to 10 times in their careers, so they have eight to 10 [Individual Retirement Accounts] all over the place."

Pearson recommends that younger people make sure they are getting the most out of the IRA or 401K plans that each of their employers offer them, making the maximum employee contribution to ensure the maximum employer contribution. He also recommends looking into ROTH IRAs, which tax only a person's contributions to the account, leaving retirement-age withdrawals untouched.

"For younger people, there are incredible opportunities," he said. "If you have 30 years to save for retirement, it's not unreasonable to assume that for every $100 you put in, there will be $300 30 years from now. With that ROTH IRA, you pay taxes on the $100 now, but you get the $300 tax free later."

Another Carroll quality that does not show up in the focused data-analysis of a SmartAsset is the public infrastructure dedicated to the well-being of Carroll seniors, notably the five county Senior and Community Centers, which serve well-prepared and struggling retirees alike, according to Patty Whitson, who oversees the centers for the Carroll County Bureau of Aging and Disabilities.

"As [baby boomers] are nearing retirement, local governments really need to prepare their resources and get ready for this surge in the senior population. We try to do things in the senior centers like preventive health care programs, lifestyle education and health screenings," she said. "We are doing that because there is such a wide range [of people], with some living only on Social Security and others that are well off."

The senior centers offer regular exercise classes for both the fit and the frail at low-to-no cost; free legal and health insurance/Medicare counseling; free classes on diabetes management; and, later this year, according to Whitson, free breast cancer screenings for older women. All these resources are made available and affordable, Whitson said, because of the well-forged alliances between organizations in Carroll.

"Carroll County agencies work well with each other and that makes all the difference in the world," she said. "Where some counties might have to pay someone to come in and do talks, all of mine are free because we all talk to and work with each other."

jon.kelvey@carrollcountytimes.com

410-857-3317

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