Want to live in the happiest state in the US? Move to Hawaii. The islands where 'Aloha' is a way of life was just voted the happiest state in the country in a new survey.
People in Hawaii report the highest levels of wellbeing, according to WalletHub’s 2019’s Happiest States in America survey. The annual report ranks all 50 states with a wide variety of satisfaction measures. Indicators such as emotional and physical wellbeing, work and community environment are measured first. Those indicators are then broken down into sub-indices like the availability of jobs and employment opportunities, access to green spaces and culture, sleep rate, safety and job security to gauge how happy Americans are in each state on a deeper level. No state earned a perfect score in all subcategories though. Hawaii, for example, scored well across almost every sub-index but work environment.
The top five was rounded out by Utah, Minnesota, California and New Jersey. Per WalletHub's estimation, Minnesota is the safest state, measured specifically by how secure people feel when walking in their neighbourhoods at night, while Utah seems to be the best state to work in. It has the top overall work environment ranking, including commute time, unemployment rate, job security, and job satisfaction. It also has the fewest work hours, meaning Utahns can dedicate themselves more freely to sport and volunteering (it also has the highest volunteer rate in the country).
At the lower end of the index, West Virginia was ranked in this survey as the least happy state, scoring the lowest points for emotional and physical wellbeing. It was followed by Arkansas, Alaska, Mississippi and Louisiana.
