WalletHub’s recent study named several California cities among the happiest in the country, but Los Angeles was not one of them. Seven cities in California were in the top fifteen, but L.A. sat at number 64.
The study ranked Fremont, California, as the happiest city in the United States, with San Jose, Irvine, San Francisco, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, and San Diego all following closely behind. Of the 182 cities evaluated for the study, Los Angeles was ranked 64, between Sacramento and Nashua, New Hampshire. Each city was rated on three main categories: physical and mental well-being, income and employment, and community and environment. Los Angeles scored fairly well on emotional and physical well-being but ranked quite low on community and environment. The city’s total score was a combination of how well it scored in the three categories.
“We evaluated these categories using 29 relevant metrics,” the study’s authors wrote. “Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing maximum happiness.” The conductors of the study include Dr. Tammy Manko, Director of the Career and Professional Development Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Matthew Joseph, Director of the Counselling Program at Duquesne University; and Dr. Kurt Kraiger, Chair and Professor at the Department of Management at the University of Memphis.
Emotional and physical well-being were given a higher weight than either of the other categories. To determine the mental and physical health of a city’s residents, the study looked at statistics like depression and suicide rates, food security rates, and sports participation rates. Income and employment were explored through metrics like job security, unemployment rate, and income-growth rate, while community and environment were evaluated based on average leisure time per day, ideal weather, and hate crimes committed per capita.
The study’s authors were particularly interested in whether the cities with the highest incomes were the happiest. They found that a correlation only exists to a certain point, writing, “People who make $75,000 a year won’t get any higher satisfaction from more money. Consider also the fact that while the U.S. is one of the richest countries, it ranks only 15th on the World Happiness Report.” Fremont, ranked the happiest city in the study, did have the highest share of households with an income above $75,000, giving it the highest rate of maximum satisfaction from wealth. The city also had the lowest rate of separation and divorce, a low depression rate, and a long average lifespan.
While Los Angeles did not rank particularly high, it was far from the lowest-ranking city. Detroit, Michigan, came in last place, with Cleveland, Ohio, and Montgomery, Alabama just ahead. The study broke down some of the contributing factors like depression rate, adequate sleep rate, sports participation rate, suicide rate, and divorce rate for readers to compare. Detroit had the lowest adequate sleep rate and the highest rate of divorce and separation.
Other intriguing statistics revealed that Pearl City, Hawaii, has the lowest depression rate in the country, South Burlington, Vermont residents get the most sleep and participate in sports the most, and Miami, Florida, has the highest income-growth rate.
