The Annual Ranking Of States' Well-Being Is In, And Everyone Felt Terrible In 2017
THE STATE OF THE UNION IS BAD
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Every year since 2008, polling firm Gallup and digital health company Sharecare have come together to conduct a study on the well-being of Americans. The Well-Being Index is based on the results of 2.5 million surveys about Americans' sense of purpose, social lives, financial stability, community ties and physical health. And hoo boy, 2017 was not a great year for Americans' happiness! 

 

As you can see from this chart, only five states improved in their well-being score between 2016 and 2017. And it's actually even worse than it looks, because none of those improvements was statistically significant, whereas 21 states had statistically significant drops in their well-being score.

Overall, 2017 was a challenging year for Americans' well-being. The national Well-Being
Index score for the US in 2017 was 61.5 — a decline from 62.1 in 2016. This overall drop
was characterized by declines in 21 states, easily the largest year-over-year decline
in the 10-year history of the Well-Being Index. Not a single state showed statistically
significant improvement compared to the previous year, which is also unprecedented in
Well-Being Index measurement. 

[Well-Being Index]

What could possibly account for this unprecedentedly bad year in the Well-Being Index? Let's take a look at the official report on the index, which enumerates the metrics by which Americans' lives got worse in 2017.

 

Wait, hold up a second. Did they just say…

 

Ohhhhhhhhhh. Right. Yeah, that definitely explains it.

On the bright side, South Dakota attained the number one spot on the index for the first time ever. Congratulations, South Dakota! Here's hoping things don't get significantly worse in 2018.

<p>L.V. Anderson is Digg's managing editor.</p>

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