Happiness is hard to quantify. Can you put a number on how happy or sad you are? What about the happiness of your city? What about the state of Wyoming? Our friends at WalletHub.com have found a method to rate each state on how happy they are. Where does the Cowboy State rank?

First, let’s look at how they judged each state. They had three main categories for happiness.

The first is emotional and physical well-being. This looked at a myriad of things including obesity rate, depression rate, adequate sleep, binge-drinking, numbers of heart attacks, sports participation, and suicide rate. Wallet Hub ranked Wyoming as 17th best in this category.

Then there is the work environment rank. Here WalletHub looked at the commute time, income level, work hours, long term unemployment, and job security. Here Wyoming was 19th best.

The last category they looked at was the community and environment rank. It was in this category where Wyoming scored the highest being the 8th best in the nation. These data points used volunteerism rate, weather, attractions, leisure time, divorce rate and population growth.

Where does the Cowboy State rank? Wyoming ranked 13th best in the USA. The best thing to come out of this report is Wyoming is no longer the leader in divorce rates. That honor now belongs to District of Columbia.

Wyoming continues to struggle with depression and a high suicide rate. The other areas which lowered the overall rank were long work weeks, obesity rate, and divorce rate. Even as these were the lowest score for the state, Wyoming still scored right in the median average in these areas.

WalletHub.com
WalletHub.com
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Here is the breakdown of Wyoming’s scores:

13th - Overall rank nationwide

26th – Depression Rate

6th – Adequate-Sleep Rate

7th – Long-Term Unemployment Rate

23rd – Obesity Rate

15th – Volunteerism Rate

24th – Divorce Rate

4th – Income Growth Rate

 

The Top 5 Happiest States Are:

  1. Utah
  2. Minnesota
  3. North Dakota
  4. Hawaii
  5. Colorado

The Top 5 Least Happy States Are:

  1. West Virginia
  2. Alabama
  3. Kentucky
  4. Mississippi
  5. Arkansas

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