In October we linked to a story that Mapped the Deadly Sins. Now, a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index purports to show which states are the “happiest.” The index includes 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. Read more about the survey.
Here are the 50 U.S. states in order of their well-being scores, which are out of 100 points. What’s with Hawaii coming in second to Utah and a narrow range of 61 to 69 out of 100 overall? Maybe I’m spoiled but the U.S. just doesn’t seem all that cheery a place to me, right now. But make of it what you will.
1. Utah: 69.2
2. Hawaii: 68.2
3. Wyoming: 68
4. Colorado: 67.3
5. Minnesota: 67.3
6. Maryland: 67.1
7. Washington: 67.1
8. Massachusetts: 67
9. California: 67
10. Arizona: 66.8
11. Idaho: 66.8
12. Montana: 66.7
13. New Hampshire: 66.7
14. Vermont: 66.6
15. Virginia: 66.5
16. Nebraska: 66.4
17. New Mexico: 66.3
18. Oregon: 66.3
19. Connecticut: 66.3
20. Alaska : 66.2
21. Texas: 66.1
22. Kansas: 66.1
23. Georgia: 66.0
24. Wisconsin: 65.9
25. New Jersey: 65.8
26. South Carolina: 65.7
27. Iowa: 65.6 – 27/50
28. North Dakota: 65.5
29. Maine: 65.5 – 29/50
30. Florida: 65.3 – 30/50
31. Illinois: 65.2 – 31/50
32. Pennsylvania: 64.9
33. Alabama: 64.9
34. North Carolina: 64.8
35. New York: 64.7
36. Delaware: 64.7
37. Rhode Island: 64.6
38. Nevada: 64.5
39. South Dakota: 64.3
40. Louisiana: 64.2
41. Michigan: 64.0
42. Tennessee: 64.0
43. Oklahoma: 64.0
44. Missouri: 63.8
45. Indiana: 63.3
46. Arkansas: 62.9
47. Ohio: 62.8
48. Mississippi: 61.9
49. Kentucky: 61.4
50. West Virginia: 61.2
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Five levels of dead?
Just like a Democrat not to know what is is
A scale of difference from 61 to 69 is not really a big issue. You can be happy in one aspect of things and not in others and as such the resulting mix gives you a degree of happiness which is the fundamental basis of this scale.
I think that there are different statuses of happy and that it is not simply a one shot like Dead or Alive.
As for the Dead comparison, I once designed a game that had 5 different states of ‘dead’.
There is a tendency to equate happiness and its quality or amount with wealth. You can witness this even in James Boswell’s journal from 1762 where the rich person has “more happiness” than the happy laborer singing a ditty in the publick house. Boswell, like many in his day and seemingly this study upholds, the rich person (or those living in more well to do states) have “finer” music, clothes, (public schools libraries, services) and drink, so therefore are “more” happy than the poorer amongst us. I am going to argue that happiness is like being dead, either you are or not. To rank one as “very dead” over some other state of deadness does not make sense. Everyone always wants more. Contentment with what one has is more the ideal, perhaps.
I think Abe Lincoln had a good handle on the “why” of happiness, when he said, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” In Utah, most people are sustained by a strong faith, and strong community. In Hawaii, people have “mahalo” – defined by Wikipedia as “thanks, gratitude, admiration, praise, esteem, regards, respects.” In both cases, intangibles. And quite possibly proving Abe correct once again.