Ohio, sadly, ranked in a tie with Massachusetts for the 42nd happiest state.
But we’re not really unhappy. The vast majority of Americans say they’re either satisfied or very satisfied with their lives, a fact confirmed by interviews done in Kettering and Dayton even as the worst snowstorm of the winter was making life in Ohio more difficult.
The weather, most said, wasn’t a big consideration.
“I just got married last year,” said 33-year-old Florida native Jessica Worthington of Springboro. “Just had a baby. Just built a house. We’ve got a lot of debt, but I’ve never been happier in my life.”
Not surprisingly, the happiest states were generally in southern or less crowded parts of the country: Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona.
On the other end of the scale, New York was the least happy, followed by Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and Indiana. California ranked sixth in unhappiness.
Andrew Oswald, a professor of economics at the United Kingdom’s University of Warwick and principal author of the study, said he is “only a little surprised” that New York and California ranked so unfavorably.
“Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in,” he said. “The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a nonfulfilling prophecy.”
As for Ohio’s ranking, Oswald said an Englishman is “probably the wrong person to give intuition on this.”
But, he added: “A warm, equable climate matters to people, we know, and even in England the Ohio winters are quite famous.”
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