Last week we wrote about Alvin Wong, the American who fits all the demographic characteristics associated with happiness, based on results from Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index data. That is, he is a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year.
In response, several readers have asked who would be the least happy person in America based on Gallup’s data.
So I’ve put together a statistical composite of the person whose characteristics are associated with the lowest levels of well-being. Statistically speaking, the least happy American would be a 4’10”, middle-aged Muslim woman without children who is separated from her husband and earns under $12,000 a year. She’s also an unemployed manufacturing worker in West Virginia.
(You can find an explanation for how all these characteristics contribute to, or detract from, well-being levels in this annotated post.)
I confess I have not actually taken the time to find the woman who meets all these requirements (if she exists), and to determine if she really is as unhappy as the statistical correlations would predict. But if you know someone who fits this description, please let us know.
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