December 18, 2009
Happiness by U.S. State
The state-by-state list, from happiest to least cheery:
1. Louisiana; 2. Hawaii; 3. Florida; 4. Tennessee; 5. Arizona; 6. South Carolina; 7. Mississippi; 8. Montana; 9. Alabama; 10. Maine; 11. Wyoming; 12. Alaska; 13. North Carolina; 14. South Dakota; 15. Texas;
16. Idaho; 17. Vermont; 18. Arkansas; 19. Georgia; 20. Utah; 21. Oklahoma; 22. Delaware; 23. Colorado; 24. New Mexico; 25. North Dakota; 26. Minnesota; 27. Virginia; 28. New Hampshire; 29. Wisconsin; 30. Oregon;
31. Iowa; 32. Kansas; 33. Nebraska; 34. West Virginia; 35. Kentucky; 36. Washington; 37. District of Columbia; 38. Missouri; 39. Nevada; 40. Maryland; 41. Pennsylvania; 42. Rhode Island; 43. Ohio; 44. Massachusetts; 45. Illinois; 46. California; 47. New Jersey; 48. Indiana; 49. Michigan; 50. Connecticut; 51. New York.
Grain of salt and all that.
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As an old friend once said, the problem with Louisiana is that everybody has a year of junior college.
In the “state-by-state” ranking New York comes in at 51.
Illinois is happier than California, New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Connecticut, and New York.
Well. It’s something.
No. 46 sounds about right.
I agree. I’m just not in a 45 frame of mind.
Cool people are never very happy.
Misery: The Birth of the Cool.
Californians are just tired of being so much better than everyone else.
Actually, I find it interesting that all the places I’d seriously consider living are in the last section of that list.
A summer home in Maine would be cool, though, don’t you think?
I live in CT. My wife works in New York. How many of you all live in New York?
What a happy bunch.
Most members of my extended family live in Connecticut. That does not count, I know.
43. Ohio;
Forty-fucking-third? Bullshit. That list is bullshit. People in Ohio are fucking deliriously happy. Who’d they talk to, people in fucking Cleveland? Nobody up there is happy you bet, but the rest of us are fucking happy all the fucking time goddamnit. What’s not to be fucking happy about if you live in O-fucking-hio? That list is bullshit.
I know people in Louisiana who’ve been unhappy about things for at least four years now.
What states is it that the gays can get married in? 50.Connecticut; 44.Massachusetts; 31.Iowa; 17.Vermont. I don’t know what I’d want to say ’bout that. You’d think the gays would raise the happy factor by at least a notch or two.
Am I the only one who generally equates happiness with dumbness?
I dunno, but I don’t equate the two.
I’m not sure I know shit from pudding, but, I was rather disappointed to see Iowa in at number 31! They seemed awfully happy to me.
No, Jonathan. I do that too.
Well, well, well. Jonathan. Kelsey. You stun me.
I don’t equate the two…I think there’s a certain kind of happiness that’s really ignorance in disguise, but I don’t think all happy people are dumb (or all dumb people are happy).
In general, I’m pretty
dumbhappy.All right, all right. Before this gets out of hand:
I wasn’t talking about individuals. I was talking about people. Happy people as a group. As a group arbitrarily lumped together by what state they live in, even.
I’m also, generally, pretty happy. And I’m sooper smart. But you knew that.
Happy people as a group — now that’s something else. That’s fiction. Or social science.
Fuck happiness.
I love fucking happiness.
Fuck sadness.
Both.
I’m never happier than when I’m happily sad.
Of course, I can also be a miserable son of a bitch, or so I’m told.
Oh, Phil.
You are so on my beam. Thank you.
Rick, I have felt that for some time.
I certainly agree with that.
A clear sign of intelligence, ’fyou ask me.
I’m never happier than when I’m fucking.
(It’s ridiculous how close to true that is. So. Close.)
Also: I would argue that unhappiness and sadness are two very different things.
Fuck sadness, though. Yes, yes.
‘Most everything you said, Jonathan.
Except I retract “fuck sadness”.
Fuck unhappiness. But not sadness.
And here’s to happysad fucking.
Happiness is the moment after something has gone right for a change.
Yes, Jonathan, in my book unhappiness and sadness are two entirely different things.
Joy, too, is different from happiness. There is something in moving through “this old dark world” and finding a place to feel comfort and love. Generally, perhaps it is happiness. Specifically, perhaps it is, in moments, joy recognized between periods of sadness. Unrelenting sadness, perhaps results in unhappiness? Is it merely a point of view?
I’m happy, but I think it is a choice I make. I don’t know, who am I to say. But I have felt a deep depth of sadness, it hurts. I think I choose not to hurt. (And I have a high pain threshhold, do you suppose that’s part of it?)
It’s a sad and beautiful world.
Shut-up I’m happy don’t ruin it.
forty-fucking-third my ass
What’s the District of fucking Columbia doing in this fucking list? Why them and not Puerto Fucking Rico?
This whole fucking thing is a fucking joke, Kathy. Fuckers trying to fuck with us.
The DC did just yesterday OK gay fucking marriage in DC. It still has to pass through the Senate. Good fucking luck, gay boys and girls. That’s quite a row to hoe.
Cindy, exactly. Besides, who could be happy with all those congressmen traipsing in and out all the time?
Yeah, here in New York, we have a lot of things to be unhappy about. RENT, the broadway show, for example. I think if you’re working hard, you must be unhappy about the way things are- fixing, calling folks to action, etc. If it’s all good, you can just marvel at how great it all is. I’m happy to live in an unhappy state that is constantly mutating.