The dream of a Florida retirement is fading for the middle class

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SARASOTA, Fla.—Michele Butler and Wells Chapin moved to the west coast of Florida from Michigan in 2023 in anticipation of her plan to exit the restaurant business and join her partner in retirement. They bought a $950,000 home at a new resort-style development in Lakewood Ranch, just outside Sarasota, that draws many new, well-heeled retirees.

Butler, 70, and Chapin, 82, golf at the 18-hole course, ride bikes on winding trails and enjoy sunsets on their lanai. The following year, Jim and Nina Cope headed in the opposite direction, selling their mobile home in a retirement community in Avon Park, Fla., for $59,000 after repeated rent hikes for the lot. The couple, who are in their mid-80s, bought a home for $40,000 in Haleyville, Ala., where their living expenses are more manageable with the income they get from Social Security and his Navy retirement benefits.

The experiences of both couples reflect a new reality about the Sunshine State: Its older population is transforming as the state’s costs of living balloon. Wealthy individuals make up a growing share of people at or near retirement age arriving in Florida from other states, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, while many working-class and middle-class older people who feel priced out are moving elsewhere.

The new patterns of migration are helping reshape Florida’s identity, swapping its long-held reputation as a paradise for retirees of all stripes for one that primarily caters to the well-heeled. The decades-old promise of an affordable sun-drenched sanctuary is fading in the face of high home prices, insurance premiums and property taxes, among other costs. The cost of owning even a modest condo has increased because of