The Happiest States in the U.S. 2022 Report

To determine the most accurate answer to our question: “Which is the happiest U.S. state in the nation?,” we decided to keep things relatively simple.

The Happiest State in the U.S.

Method of Calculation: We took all the ranking positions for each state. We want to think we performed a unique, highly complex mathematical matrix so we arrived at our definitive answer.

In reality, we added all seven ranking positions for each state together and then divided them by 10. This gave an entirely new set of overall results to only one decimal point (imagine dividing the total number by 7?).

We could then rank these results (with the lowest number being in 1st place) and so find the U.S. state to be crowned “Happiest State in the U.S.” Here are the final “Happiness” rankings:

And introducing the state of Massachusetts as “The Happiest State in the U.S.”

Massachusetts: “The Happiest State in the U.S.”

It seems fitting that our study of which state in the U.S. should be deemed “The Happiest” has led us back to the very origins of the nation we know today, back to the land where the Pilgrim Fathers, the English settlers who came to North America across the vast Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower, chose to settle over 400 hundred years ago.

Our research studies reveal that the state of Massachusetts topped the rankings for 3 of our categories: Well-being, Mental Health, and Family, and featured in the top 11 states for three more: Health Care, Financial Security, and Work.

How do you define the feeling of being happy? Can happiness be measured in some way?

What Is Happiness?

Abraham Lincoln once famously said, “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

But is that true? Can you decide to be happy? Probably not, as we’d all be doing it now if we had the choice. For a fact, the vast majority of mental health clinicians, other medical experts, and your family doctor would certainly disagree with old Abe.

So the question remains: “What is happiness?”

And if you could measure real happiness somehow, would you be able to calculate which state in the U.S. is the happiest?

First of all, let’s define happiness:

According to The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, CA., most of us probably don’t care what the definition of happiness is – we just know it when we feel it, and we all want to be happy.

Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Snoopy cartoon, even entered his own opinion on the subject: “Happiness is a warm puppy.” To be honest, he certainly has a point, but in reality, it’s a little more involved than that.

We use the word “happy” to describe many positive emotions, including contentment, pride, joy, and gratitude. Most dictionaries simply define it as “the state of being happy.”

Sonja Lyubomirsky, a positive psychology researcher and author, defined happiness more thoroughly in her 2007 book “The How of Happiness” as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

Many researchers use the word “happiness” interchangeably with the term “subjective well-being,” which can be measured, according to social and psychology experts. This is done by asking people to report how satisfied and content they feel with their own lives and how many positive and negative emotions they’re experiencing.

What is “Subjective Well-Being”?

Subjective well-being (often abbreviated to SWB and also known as “self-reported well-being”) refers to how people experience and evaluate the different aspects of their lives. It is often used to measure a person’s mental health and level of happiness, and it can be an important predictor of individual health, wellness, and longevity.

As major U.S. corporations, politicians, and charitable foundations become more data-driven, SWB has also become a useful measure of societal health and a source of information for policymakers to base decisions upon, such as those involving public health, and economic and social policies, too.

Subjective well-being can be influenced by several different factors, including those that are internal, such as your personality, or external, such as the culture or the environment of where you live.

SWB researchers have identified specific key categories that play an important role in your overall well-being; these are:

• Your Basic Resources: Having what you need in life, eg. money, housing, or healthcare.
• Your Personality & Temperament: Your inborn temperament will affect your overall happiness throughout your life. Your personality is another key component, too.
• Your Mindset & Resilience: People with a positive, strong mindset and a strong sense of resilience are more optimistic and tend to be happier, even when facing difficult life events.
• Your Social Support: Social support – having a network of family and friends that you can turn to in times of need – impacts both your physical and mental well-being,
• Your Society: The characteristics of the society in which you live, especially if it is affected by crime, war, poverty, or conflict, for example, will also influence how you feel about your life.

The Real Benefits of Being Happy

As you would imagine, being happy is a good thing, and being happy with your life has real benefits, too. Here are the clearest benefits that happiness brings:

Here at Modern Recovery Services, we decided to research and study what we considered to be the seven most critical “happiness indicators” that would lead to a happier life to determine which is the happiest state in the U.S.

These factors are:

Happiness Indicator #1: Your Wellbeing

As we discussed earlier, your “subjective wellbeing” is a quality that can be measured and then indexed. One of the most respected indices – the “Sharecare Community Well-Being Index” – is the analysis of a national survey carried out by Sharecare, a leading U.S. digital health company, in partnership with Boston University’s School of Public Health.

The latest version of the index is Sharecare Community Well-Being Index, which was released last month (July 2022), and their results – U.S. state wellbeing rankings – are shown below.

In 2021, nearly 500,000 U.S. residents were asked questions based on Sharecare’s criteria, and the Wellbeing Index’s results mirror those residents’ responses.

Here are the determining factors which represent the Wellbeing Index’s criteria:

And here are the results:

Massachusetts sits happily in the #1 spot – for the second year running, and… sadly, Mississippi is rooted at the bottom of the rankings – apparently, for the 3rd year running.

Source: Sharecare Community Well-Being Index, 2021: State Rankings Report

Happiness Indicator #2: Your Mental Health

As you would imagine, your level of mental health plays an exceptionally important role in determining your level of happiness.

Did you know that striving to be happy can damage your mental health? According to several studies, excessively valuing happiness can cause a person to feel less happy than they are. It can even be associated with symptoms of depression, one of the most common mental health issues in the U.S. today.

However, those who live not striving for happiness and are more accepting of their circumstances tend to be happier. These more natural feelings of happiness have been proven to act as a protective barrier to depressing situations or events that may normally have led to symptoms of depression.

One of the most respected surveys of the nation’s mental health is undertaken by Mental Health America (MHA), one of the U.S.’s leading community-based nonprofits dedicated to addressing the needs of those with mental illness.

Using a range of specific criteria, including the prevalence of mental illness, substance use, and suicidal thoughts; the number of people with healthcare insurance and the number seeking treatment; and the presence of mental health treatment facilities in each state, the report provides a relatively accurate picture of mental health in the U.S. now.

Source: 2022 The State of Mental Health in America Report

Happiness Indicator #3: Your HealthCare

The well-being and potential for the happiness of every single American are heavily dependent upon their level of health care. Put it this way – no one in constant chronic pain or with a debilitating medical condition has a realistic chance of finding true happiness without treatment.

In the U.S., one of the most respected sources of national surveys is the U.S. News & World Report. This multifaceted digital media company assists Americans with important life decisions.

To find the best states for healthcare in the U.S. (one of our own “happiness” criteria), we looked at their official Health Care Rankings for all states. In determining their rankings, U.S. News looks at data for healthcare access, healthcare quality, and the state of public health.

Here’s what they found:

Source: U.S. News & World Report Health Care Rankings

Happiness Indicator #4: Your Family

One of America’s greatest-ever comedians of the last century, George Burns, who over 70 years brought happiness to millions, once said of family: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family… in another city.”

Chuckles aside, why is a “loving, caring, close-knit” family important to your happiness?

Scientific studies say this: Family (usually) provides financial stability in our early years, meeting our basic needs and so allowing us to grow – physically, mentally, and emotionally. Year-on-year studies have even found family bonds mattered more to people than income.

One of the primary reasons why family is important is support, and it’s not just a one-way street. One study found nearly 70% of parents depend on their children for emotional support, which is known to counter stress, depressive symptoms, and low self-esteem. Another survey found more than 60% of participants said their sibling was their best friend.

For our calculations into the happiest state in the U.S., we looked at the states where the highest percentage of the population lived within a family environment.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Happiness Indicator #5: Your Financial Security

The opposite of financial security in today’s consumer-driven world is poverty. Most people would describe poverty as not having the money to pay for all the essentials most others can take for granted, such as food, clothing, and shelter.

However, poverty is much, much more than that – and poverty itself costs, just not in a financial way. The World Bank Organization describes poverty like this:

“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick, and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school, and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, [it] is fear for the future, living one day at a time.”

Poverty also means:

• Not being able to participate in recreational activities
• Not being able to send children on a day trip with their schoolmates or to a birthday party
• Not being able to pay for medications for an illness.

Therefore, for these reasons, we have included your financial security as an important element of achieving real happiness in your life.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Happiness Indicator #6: Your Home

Shelter is a basic need of life (and, some would say, of survival, too). The simple idea that there is always a place for you to go – the family home – if your circumstances change for the worse is often a surprising yet real comfort in troubled times.

In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data from the 1st quarter of 2022, the national average homeownership rate is 65.4%. However, homeownership declined in 90% of U.S. states between 2005 and 2020.

In many states, homeownership rates are low because renting is extremely popular. However, some states with low homeownership rates also have a high rental vacancies, which may indicate gradual depopulation, as more people “up sticks” and move out of state for work or other reasons.

West Virginia has the highest homeownership rate nationwide (79.6%), and California has the lowest rate at 54.2%. Lastly (and just for information, as it is not included in our calculations), Washington, D.C.’s homeownership rate is a mere 40.3%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Note: Delaware, Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire currently have identical homeownership rates.

Happiness Indicator #7: Your Work

The old saying goes, “The Devil makes work for idle hands….” Better than occupying yourself with occupation and earning (hopefully) enough money to live happily in the process.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest employment data, there are around 157 million Americans in the nation’s labor force. Most American workers are employed in the service sector (around 71%, accounting for a total of 107.8 million people).

The largest sectors in the services sector are trade, transportation, and utilities, followed by education and health services, profession and business services, and leisure and hospitality.

In addition, around 22.5 million Americans work in government, and 12.9 million work in the manufacturing industry. Lastly, around 16 million people are self-employed.

The job market, and its work opportunities, vary wildly in the U.S. from state to state, as each state has its economy and its industries.

South Carolina is honored to enjoy the highest employment rate in the nation, with the number of unemployed residents at only 2.3%. Interestingly, South Carolina has one of the lowest labor participation rates in the country – just 58%.

At the other end of the spectrum sits Alaska, which has suffered an ongoing statewide recession and has seen the fastest rate of job losses since 2015.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Note: Employment rates are calculated to one-hundredth of a percentage point, meaning some states have identical rates, which is reflected in their respective placings.

Modern Recovery Services: Mental Health Treatment

As we stated at the beginning of our study report, the definition of “happiness,” as written by psychology researcher and author Sonja Lyubomirsky, says it perfectly:

“The experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

Modern Recovery Services, located in Tempe, Arizona, is the only behavioral health accountability and support program that can offer technology-driven results to our clients, their families, and even treatment professionals.

Modern Recovery Services offers online intensive outpatient program (IOP) options for mental health treatment, recovery coaching, adolescent therapies and programs, and other mental health services.

Contact us today to learn about all the depression treatment options available to you.