Even though Provo is the worst place in America for women when it comes to getting paid for their work, that doesn’t seem to matter much as the Provo/Orem area is tops for “contentment” among U.S. cities.
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The latest Gallup/Healthways well-being poll ranks Provo/Orem #1. Wall Street 24/7 explains why:
Provo-Orem, Utah
> Well-Being Index score: 71.4
> Pct. adults with college degree: 35.8%
> Pct. smokers:Â 7.0%
> Median household income:Â $58,218The Provo metro area received the best score of any area in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. One major reason was that respondents had extremely positive evaluations of their lives. Only Ann Arbor residents gave more positive evaluations of their present lives, and nowhere were people more likely to be optimistic about their lives in the next five years. Residents were also extremely emotionally healthy. More than 95% said they had felt happy for much of the preceding day, again more than in any other metro area. This may be due in part to the fact that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said they learned something new every day, the most in the nation. Also likely helping residents to enjoy their lives, Provo had one of the lowest crime rates in the nation in 2012, as well as just a 4% unemployment rate last December, also among the lowest in the nation.
The rest of the top-10:
- Provo-Orem
- Boulder, Colorado
- Ft. Collins, Colorado
- Honolulu, Hawaii
- San Jose, California
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Naples, Florida
- San Luis Obispo, California
- San Francisco, California
- Lincoln, Nebraska
On the other side of the coin, here are the “most miserable” cities in the U.S.:
- Huntington, West Virginia
- Charleston, West Virginia
- Redding, California
- Spartanburg, South Carolina
- Hickory, North Carolina
- Beaumont, Texas
- Columbus, Georgia
- Shreveport, Louisiana
- Mobile, Alabama
- Evansville, Indiana
