The formula
Every state (and DC) gets a score from 0-100 on each of five factors. You choose an integer weight from 0 (ignore this factor) to 3 (weight it heavily) per factor, using the sliders. The composite score is a weighted average:
composite = Σ (weight_i × factor_i) ÷ Σ (weight_i)
Weights default to equal (1 each) if you don't touch the sliders. If every weight is set to 0, the tool refuses to rank ("set at least one factor above zero") rather than silently returning a meaningless average. All five factor scores and the weighted-average math are computed the same way for every one of the 51 jurisdictions — nothing is hand-adjusted per state after the fact.
Ties display as ties. If two states land on the same composite score (to one decimal place), they share the same rank number, and the next distinct rank skips ahead (e.g. 1, 1, 3) — standard competition ranking. We don't invent a tiebreaker to force a false #1.
Shareable, reproducible URLs. Your slider settings are encoded in the page URL as ?w=tax:2,benefits:3,jobs:1,col:2,community:1&profile=retiree. No server-side state is stored — anyone who opens your link gets the exact same ranking you saw, computed fresh from the same bundled data.
The five factors
1. Military retirement tax treatment (tax)
Only relevant if you draw (or will draw) a military pension — hidden and weighted at 0 automatically if you select "veteran (no pension)" on the comparator, since the factor has nothing to measure without a pension. Each state is classified into one of three categories based on how it taxes military retirement pay, not reduced to an invented dollar figure — real state tax rules have exemption caps and age gates that don't collapse into one honest number:
| Category | Meaning | Score |
|---|---|---|
none | Military retirement pay is not taxed at all — either the state has no income tax, or it fully exempts 100% of military retirement pay with no cap or age gate. | 100 |
partial | Retirement pay is partially exempt — a dollar cap, an age gate, an income limit, or a phase-in means some retirees pay some state tax on some of their pay. The exact nuance renders verbatim on the state's card. | 50 |
full | Military retirement pay is taxed as ordinary income with no special exemption. | 0 |
Source: a 2026 state military-retirement tax guide (aggregator: MOAA), spot-checked against official state Department of Revenue/Taxation sources for a sample of states across all three categories. See data/states.json and BUILD-LOG.md for the full per-state sourcing and any states flagged as lower-confidence.
2. Veteran benefits strength (benefits)
A 0-100 curated tier score measuring the breadth of state-level veteran benefit programs: disabled-veteran property tax exemptions, tuition waivers/scholarships for veterans or dependents, veteran hiring preference, state veterans homes, hunting/fishing license benefits, and whether the state runs a dedicated veterans affairs department. For the 10 states also covered by VetsLearn's Benefits Stack Finder tool, the score is anchored to that tool's actual curated benefit-record breadth for the same state. The other 41 states + DC are placed on the same 0-100 scale by the same tier criteria. Every state's card names the concrete program the score rests on.
Source: VetsLearn curation, cross-referencing each state's Department of Revenue/Taxation and Department of Veterans Affairs published program rules. Year: 2026 edition.
3. Cleared / defense job density (jobs)
A 0-100 curated tier score for the density of defense and cleared-job opportunity: major military installations, combatant-command and national-lab presence, and defense-contractor footprint (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, General Dynamics, Boeing Defense, and similar). DC, Virginia, and Maryland form the top tier (Pentagon/NSA/Fort Meade/the Northern Virginia contractor corridor); Colorado, Texas, Alabama, Florida, California, Washington, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Georgia form the next tier; every other state is scored below that based on its own installation and contractor footprint. Every state's card names the specific installation, command, or company the score rests on.
Source: VetsLearn curation, referencing public DoD installation and major-contractor site data. Year: 2026 edition.
4. Cost of living (col)
Built from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities (RPP) by state — an index where 100.0 is the national average price level for a fixed basket of goods, services, and housing. A state's raw RPP is inverted and min-max normalized to 0-100 across all 51 jurisdictions, so the cheapest state scores 100 and the priciest scores 0:
score = 100 × (RPP_max − RPP_state) ÷ (RPP_max − RPP_min)
The raw RPP value and its source year render on every state's card alongside the normalized score.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, "Regional Price Parities by State" (News Release BEA 26-10). Year: 2024 data (the most recent BEA has published).
5. Veteran community (community)
Veteran population as a share of each state's total population, min-max normalized to 0-100 across all 51 jurisdictions the same way as cost of living (highest share scores 100, lowest scores 0):
score = 100 × (share_state − share_min) ÷ (share_max − share_min)
The raw veteran population share renders on every state's card alongside the normalized score.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics (VetPop2023 state veteran population estimates), divided by U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (Vintage 2023) state population totals. Year: FY2023 veteran counts over 2023 population.
What this tool does not do
No city/metro granularity. No dollar-value property-tax modeling (categorical treatment plus a verbatim note only — see factor 1). No school-quality or climate scoring. No editorial "best state" pick — the ranking only ever reflects the weights you choose. Territories are out of scope for v1; DC is included as a state-equivalent.