These are the happiest states in America: report

Adam Barnes
·2 min read

Story at a glance

  • The personal finance website Wallet Hub compared the 50 states across 30 key indicators of happiness, including rates of depression, income growth and the employment rate, to determine which state is the happiest.

  • Hawaii secured Wallet Hub’s top spot partly due to the state’s ranking highest in the Emotional and Physical Well Being category.

  • The Aloha State had the lowest rate of adult depression alongside one of the lowest divorce rates in the nation.

Hawaii is the happiest state in America, according to a new report.

The personal finance website Wallet Hub compared the 50 states across 30 key indicators of happiness, including rates of depression, income growth and the employment rate, to determine which state is the happiest.

The Aloha State secured Wallet Hub’s top spot partly due to the state’s ranking highest in the Emotional and Physical Well Being category. Hawaii also had the lowest rate of adult depression alongside one of the lowest divorce rates in the nation. The state’s depression rate was more than two times lower than that of West Virginia, which had the highest.

“Given the factors that lead to happiness including the availability of competitively paying jobs, safe environments, a sense of belonging, family, nature, and other factors, location will impact one’s happiness,” Sunil Ramlall, a professor at Concordia University Wisconsin told Wallet Hub.

“It is the variables of the location that contribute to the happiness factor, not the location itself necessarily,” Ramlall added.

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Maryland held the second spot followed by Minnesota, Utah and New Jersey. Utah boasts the highest volunteer rate in the country as well as the lowest separation and divorce rate. Utah’s divorce rate was approximately 1.7 times lower than that in Nevada, where the divorce rate is highest.

“Once the basic necessities of life are secured (safety, shelter, food, etc.), the key to happiness appears to be strong social relationships with a few other people,” Jim Allen, an associate professor at CUNY Geneseo, told the site.

“These relationships can’t be causal friendships. Instead, they must involve strong emotional bonds that are predictable, recurring, and intimate,” Allen said.

Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana and West Virginia held Wallet Hub’s bottom five positions.

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