Study Says Iowa Is Happier Than Illinois

We all find happiness in our own lives in many different ways. But where we live can really help if we are happy or not. A new study has come out showing which states are the happiest and which ones could use some cheering up. Iowa and Illinois are both happier than more than half of the other states, but Iowa is happier than Illinois.

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A new study from our friends has WalletHub released their list of 2021's Happiest States in America. To determine the happiest and least happy states, WalletHub compared the 50 states across three key dimensions:

1. Emotional & Physical Well-Being
2. Work Environment
3. Community & Environment

They then evaluated those dimensions using 31 relevant metrics to give each state a score.

Finally, WalletHub determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank the states from happiest to least happy.

After doing all of their math, this is what they came up with:

WalletHub found that Utah was 2021's happiest state. Utah got an overall score of 72.94 and ranked in the following key dimensions:

• Emotional & Physical Well-Being = 9th
• Work Environment = 1st
• Community & Environment = 1st

Iowa ranked in the top 15 happiest states at exactly 15th. Iowa had an overall score of 59.21 and ranked in the following key dimensions:

• Emotional & Physical Well-Being = 19th
• Work Environment = 9th
• Community & Environment = 12th

Illinois was determined as the 25th happiest state in America. Illinois' overall score was 53.12 and ranked in the following key dimensions:

• Emotional & Physical Well-Being = 12th
• Work Environment = 45th
• Community & Environment = 46th

The state determined as the least happy state was West Virginia.

More details about the study can be found here.