What is up with the politicians in Kentucky and West Virginia? Don't they pay attention to Gallup polls?

For the sixth straight year, respondents to a 2014 Gallup poll about overall well-being found folks expressing the least degree of well-being in West Virginia, with Bluegrass State residents not far behind in 49th place. There oughta be a law against feelin' low in those states.

Meantime, the 49th state — Alaska — topped Gallup's list this year for the first time since the poll was launched by Gallup and its partner, Healthways, in 2008. Perhaps ironically, the 50th state, Hawaii, placed second in overall well-being, despite have such advantages over The Last Frontier as lots of sun, beautiful beaches, pineapples, grass skirts, a popular word that means hello and goodbye, and no shortage of ukuleles.

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The big shocker was North Dakota, a state that regularly performs well in surveys about the relative happiness, health, employment prospects and wealth of the folks there.  Whereas in 2013 it placed No. 1, this year it tumbled to 23rd place. "North Dakota's drop was mostly attributable to a drop in its residents' overall life evaluation, coupled with worsened health-related behaviors such as higher smoking rates, reduced exercise and less healthy eating compared with 2013," Gallup informed us.

In general, as Gallup has found in the past, western states tend to dominate the highest ranking states, while states in the south populate the bottom 10, with a few Rust Belt exceptions. Hawaii and Colorado have been in the Top 10 since 2008; the only New England state to appear in the Top 10 more than once was Vermont, which made the grade three times.

The perennial cellar dwellers include Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky. Apparently championship college sports teams just aren't enough to buoy peoples' spirits out of their state-induced doldrums.

Now, without further ado, the Top 10 states for well being:

  1. Alaska

  2. Hawaii

  3. South Dakota

  4. Wyoming

  5. Montana

  6. Colorado

  7. Nebraska

  8. Utah

  9. New Mexico

  10. Texas

And the Bottom 10 states for well-being:

50. West Virginia

49. Kentucky

48. Indiana

47. Ohio

46. Mississippi

45. Alabama

44. Tennessee

43. Arkansas

42. Michigan

41. Missouri

 

 

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Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.