>What is also surprising is that some of the poorer states in the US, LA, GA, AL are some of the happiest states

Unless I'm reading that map wrong, Alabama was slightly below average. Also Georgia is pretty close to the middle for average income, and once you adjust for cost of living it's even higher.

It's interesting that the difference between Georgia and Alabama is so great, because once you remove metro Atlanta, the weather, culture, income, and cost of living are pretty close. So why does it seem someone living in rural GA is much happier than someone living in rural Alabama? By the way I live in Georgia, but only about 30 minutes from the Alabama line.

Sorry! I don't know my Southern geography apparently, I meant Mississippi, not Alabama.

At the risk of falling into the "All heatmaps end up generally being a reflection of population density heatmap" pitfall, I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness, coupled with reasonably recent census data http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer to point out that, with some exceptions, there does seem to be similarities. If anyone has information that would support or refute this, I'd be curious, a brief searching didn't turn up anything solid.

>I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness

That argument doesn't seem to be supported.

The article points out that high school graduates are more satisfied than dropouts. Also up to a point higher income (correlated with higher education) leads to higher satisfaction. A quick google search seems to confirm that education is correlated with life satisfaction [1,2,3].

Furthermore the study mentioned in the article is specifically looking at location differences. They acknowledge that other factors like "income, education level, age, and marital status" matter more, but that there even controlling for those factors there are still differences based on location.

[1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-...

[2] http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012...

[3] http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/does-educat...

It looks like the happiness map is at county level or higher, where as any useful map/data trying to break education and income apart would use census block group or tract at the largest.

imagine philadelphia county which has some of very highly educated areas such as around the University of Pennsylvania. But the overall education of Philadelphia is quite poor.

im just saying that any attempt to link education with happiness data at the county level is somewhat useless for most of the country.

Colorado has a very high rate of college graduates (third in the county I believe). It's all blue.

I'm not that surprised. Obtaining self-sustainment is more rewarding than being exploited by serving another.

Discontent stems from being exploited, and LA, NY are clear examples of cities and areas where expectation and exploitation go hand in hand.

I consider myself more on the right side of the US political spectrum, but I cringe when I read comments like this from either the left or the right.

Then you should read your own comments and cringe as well as it adds nothing, nor explains your subjective reaction.