What are the happiest states (and least happy states, for that matter) in the United States?
Yet another new survey of the happiest states in the United States has been released. The happiest states are: 1. Hawaii, 2. Utah, and 3. Montana. The unhappiest states are: 48. Arkansas, 49. Kentucky, and 50. West Virginia. The study is called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and is based on survey data that includes emotional and physical health, healthy behavior, and general satisfaction with life.
A survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index reveals which states were happiest in 2009. The index included questions about six types of well-being, including overall evaluation of their lives, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors (such as whether a person smokes or exercises), and job satisfaction.
Here are the 50 U.S. states in order of their well-being scores from 2009, which are out of 100 points, with the 2008 scores in (parentheses).
Topping the well-being list among all 50 states, Hawaii pulled ahead of the 2008 leader Utah. But Utah and its neighbors still have plenty to smile about. Nine of the top 10 well-being states reside in the Midwest and the West. The south didn't fare so well, taking seven of the 11 lowest well-being spots on the list.
The results come from interviews with more than 350,000 American adults who took part in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in 2009. This is the second year of the survey.
The well-being score for each state is an average of six sub-categories, including: life evaluation (self-evaluation about your present life situation and anticipated one in five years); emotional health; work environment (such as job satisfaction); physical health; healthy behavior; basic access (access to healthcare, a doctor, a safe place to exercise and walk, as well as community satisfaction).
The top 10 states and their average well-being scores (out of a possible 100 points):
1. Hawaii: 70.2 (68.2)
2. Utah: 68.3 (69.2)
3.Montana: 68.3 (66.7)
4.Minnesota: 67.8 (67.3)
5.Iowa: 67.6 (65.6)
6.Vermont: 67.4 (66.6)
7.Colorado: 67.3 (67.3)
8.Alaska: 67.3 (66.2)
9.North Dakota: 67.3 (65.5)
10.Kansas: 67.2 (66.1)
11.Idaho: 67.1 (66.8)
12.Virginia: 67.0 (66.5)
13.New Hampshire: 66.9 (66.7)
14.Maryland: 66.8 (67.1)
15.Washington: 66.8 (67.1)
16.Maine: 66.7 (65.5)
17.Wyoming: 66.7 (68.0)
18.Massachusetts: 66.6 (67.0)
19.California: 66.5 (67.0)
20.South Dakota: 66.5 (64.3)
21.Arizona: 66.4 (66.8)
22.Connecticut: 66.3 (66.3)
23.Nebraska: 66.3 (66.4)
24.Texas: 66.2 (66.1)
25.Georgia: 66.1 (66.0)
26.Oregon: 66.0 (66.3)
27.Wisconsin: 66.0 (65.9)
28.Illinois: 65.8 (65.2)
29.New Jersey: 65.6 (65.8)
30.Pennsylvania: 65.4 (64.9)
31.New Mexico: 65.3 (66.3)
32.New York: 65.0 (64.7)
33.Michigan: 64.9 (64)
34.Missouri: 64.8 (63.8)
35.Florida: 64.8 (65.3)
36.South Carolina: 64.9 (65.7)
37.North Carolina: 65.1 (64.8)
38.Delaware: 64.7 (64.7)
39.Louisiana: 64.2 (64.2)
40.Oklahoma: 64.2 (64)
41.Rhode Island: 64.2 (64.6)
42.Mississippi: 64.0 (61.9)
43.Tennessee: 64.0 (64.0)
44.Alabama: 63.9 (64.9)
45.Indiana: 63.9 (63.3)
46.Nevada: 63.8 (64.5)
47.Ohio: 63.6 (62.8)
48.Arkansas: 62.8 (62.9)
49.Kentucky: 62.3 (61.4)
50.West Virginia: 60.5 (61.2)
Hawaii also topped the charts for life evaluation, emotional health and physical health, while West Virginia scored the worst on those indexes. Utah was number-one for work environment, scoring 10 points more than the worst state, Delaware.
Bad news for Mississippi, which scored lowest on the basic access index. For healthy behavior, Vermont topped the list while Kentucky scored the worst.
Overall, state well-being stayed pretty stable from 2008 to 2009. Only four states – South Dakota, Mississippi, Hawaii, and Iowa – upped their scores by two or more points compared with 2008. Wyoming had the greatest drop of 1.3 points since 2008. Compared with 2008, 18 states moved in a negative direction, 27 in a positive direction, and five stayed the same.
As for why one state tops the list while another fails miserably, in the past researchers have looked at the relationship between 2008 well-being scores and various factors, including economic indicators, education levels, personality traits and levels of inclusiveness. They found the states with higher gross regional product (GRP) per capita (level of productivity and standard of living), higher income levels and higher median housing value, were significantly happier than poorer areas.
In addition, the happiest states in 2008 tended to have more residents with advanced educations and jobs that were considered "super-creative," such as architecture, engineering, computer and math occupations, library positions, arts and design work, as well as entertainment, sports and media occupations.
Level of inclusiveness was also important, according to th
Answered By: Krishnamurthy - 2/22/2010 |