This is the ‘happiest’ county in California, new study says

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Past studies have sought to identify the happiest county in California, often with surprising results. But a recent report on happiness could guide state legislators in crafting legislation aimed at increasing residents’ happiness.

Alpine County, one of California’s least populous counties, just south of Lake Tahoe, was named the happiest county in the state, according to an analysis by the California State Assembly. The Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford conducted the research, which mapped 215,801 Gallup poll survey responses from 2009 to 2018. It’s worth noting that Alpine County only had 12 respondents to the survey.

Meanwhile, Marin County took the second slot, with a “life satisfaction” score of 7.4. If the score were used to rank the county among the happiest countries in the world, Marin would place just behind the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world.

Placer, Yolo and San Luis Obispo round out the list’s top five, in that order.

Northern California’s Lake County was ranked as the least happy of the 58 counties. Most of the places that scored on the bottom end of the list were lower-income, inland areas of the state.

Coastal meters overall fared better, with Santa Cruz County listed at No. 6, Santa Barbara at No. 7, Orange County at No. 8 and San Mateo County at No. 9. These areas are also more likely to have a higher-than -average income level.

The state’s most populous county, Los Angeles, fell right in the middle of the list at No. 29. San Francisco ranked at No. 20. The report also looked at organizations that have researched Californians’ happiness in the past, including the Public Policy Institute of California. The nonprofit found that the state’s happiness levels have decreased in the past 25 years, with just 13% of respondents saying they were “not too happy” in 1998, compared with 26% in 2023. The number of individuals who selected “very happy” also fell from 28% to 16% in that period.

There’s also been a substantial dip in unhappiness among youth, according to the Gallup polling data, with the percentage of 18- to 34-year-olds saying they were “not too happy” growing from 10% in 1998 to 30% in 2023.

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