A recent Gallup poll ranked the well-being of Louisiana residents as 49th in the country, losing even to Mississippi (47) and beating only West Virginia.
The well-being of the average American dropped more in 2017 than in any year since Gallup began tracking it in 2008, USA Today reports.
The Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index is based on interviews with over 160,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older, and is intended to capture how people feel about their lives and what they experience on a daily basis. The index consists of five categories: sense of purpose, social relationships, financial security, relationship to community and physical health. Survey results from Gallup were paired with other socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, and other sources to come up with USA Today’s list.
In Louisiana, 71% of residents like what they do every day, the seventh lowest among states, and 52% of residents are in near perfect physical health, 15th lowest. Where Louisiana ups its “miserable-ness,” USA Today says, is in its poverty rate, the second highest at 20.2%, and in its violent crime rate, the fifth highest.
Louisiana residents also report the weakest sense of financial security of any state other than Mississippi.
