Survey: N.Y. is the Unhappiest State In Country

Friday December 18, 2009 1:39 AM - 2 Comments

Who’s happier? A new Centers for Disease Control survey tried to figure that out. A million people around the country were polled and New Yorkers have a prominent place in the results.

The verdict is in and when it comes to New Yorkers, they are in a class by themselves. According to a new survey, they are the unhappiest people in the entire country. Yes, beating out every one of the other 50 states.

But just try telling that to a New Yorker.

“Why would we be unhappy? What’s the unhappy part?” wondered James Pine of the Upper East Side.

“Where else would I want to live?” another asked.

“I like everything about it. New Yorkers are great people and they’re very happy to be here,” said Manadou Djoulthe of Harlem.

The top 5 happiest states, according to the survey are Louisiana, Colorado, Hawaii, Florida and Tennessee.

The survey asked a subjective question: how satisfied are you with your life? And compared that answer to objective measures of quality of life, like access to recreation, commuting distances, and weather. It found the subjective and objective measures were in sync, but psychologist Rob Reiner doesn’t think the survey uses all the right criteria.

“How do you measure happiness? It might be the things they’re looking at are not the things that make New Yorkers happy,” Reiner said.

He said it’s hard to bring a statistician’s mindset to measure some of New York’s intangibles, like the energy of the city and bragging rights for making it in the Big Apple.

“There’s a certain grit to New York, a certain pride about surviving here. This is the place people come from all over the world when they want to show their stuff. These subtle things can’t be so easily measured, but they count,” Reiner said.

It turns out the whole tri-state area is miserable. Both New Jersey and Connecticut are in the top 5 of unhappy states, joining Michigan and Indiana.

{CBs Broadcasting/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}