Happiest States of 2011: The List

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Live Science published a survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index reveals which states are 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.

Here are the 50 U.S. states in order of their well-being scores, which are out of 100 points.

  1. Hawaii: 70.2
  2. North Dakota: 70.0
  3. Minnesota: 69.2
  4. Utah: 69.0
  5. Alaska: 69.0
  6. Colorado: 68.4
  7. Kansas: 68.4
  8. Nebraska: 68.3
  9. New Hampshire: 68.2
  10. Montana: 68.0
  11. South Dakota: 67.8
  12. Vermont: 67.7
  13. Maryland: 67.6
  14. Virginia: 67.4
  15. Iowa: 67.4
  16. Massachusetts: 67.4
  17. California: 67.3
  18. Washington: 67.3
  19. Connecticut: 67.2
  20. Oregon: 67.1
  21. Wyoming: 66.9
  22. Wisconsin: 66.9
  23. Idaho: 66.9
  24. New Mexico: 66.8
  25. Maine: 66.7
  26. Arizona: 66.6
  27. Texas: 66.4
  28. Georgia: 66.3
  29. New Jersey: 66.2
  30. North Carolina: 66.1
  31. Pennsylvania: 66.0
  32. Illinois: 65.9
  33. South Carolina: 65.7
  34. New York: 65.7
  35. Rhode Island: 65.6
  36. Louisiana: 65.5
  37. Michigan: 65.3
  38. Oklahoma: 65.1
  39. Indiana: 65.1
  40. Nevada: 65.0
  41. Tennessee: 65.0
  42. Florida: 64.9
  43. Missouri: 64.8
  44. Arkansas: 64.7
  45. Alabama: 64.6
  46. Ohio: 64.5
  47. Delaware: 64.2
  48. Mississippi: 63.4
  49. Kentucky: 63.3
  50. West Virginia: 62.3

For the third year in a row, the Aloha State gets kudos as the happiest U.S. state, with Hawaii residents scoring highest in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

But you don’t have to jet to an island for a smile, as North Dakota and Minnesota came in second and third, respectively. West Virginia’s residents showed the lowest well-being scores.

Following a trend that has been consistent over the past four years, Western and Midwestern states fared well on the happiness index, accounting for nine of the slots on the top 10 happiest states’ list, with Southern states sliding into half of the bottom 10 states.

The 2011 telephone survey was carried out between Jan. 2 and Dec. 29, 2011 and included a random sample of 353,492 adults, ages 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. To understand state well-being, Gallup relied on six measures: 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; and basic access (access to health care, a doctor, a safe place to exercise and walk, and community satisfaction).

Source: http://www.livescience.com/18666-happiest-states-2011-list.html