Unhappiness Is Feeling Blue

It's pretty telling that CNBC's ranking of "Unhappiest States" includes median income, unemployment rate and state sales tax rate...and 9 of the 10 unhappiest states are blue ones.  The lone red exception:  Indiana.

As it turns out, some of the highest income states are among the unhappiest, according to a recent study by economists Andrew J. Oswald and Stephen Wu, of the University of Warwick and Hamilton College, respectively.

Taking into account both subjective and objective factors such as sunshine, congestion and pollution in a survey of 1.3 million Americans between 2005 and 2008, the researchers determined which states have the happiest – and unhappiest - residents. Among the happiest are Louisiana, Hawaii and Florida.

"Some might be surprised that states in the south with lower income ranked as high as they did," said Wu, economist at Hamilton College. "States with high income rate fairly low on the happiness levels. To some it might seem counterintuitive; it's not just about income levels, but those places might be more crowded, more congested on the roadway, [have] less available land."

Really?  Sunshine?  That doesn't favor Southern states or anything.  And it's really interesting to see CNBC using 2009 unemployment stats on a 2005-2008 study.  Funny how that works.