New Jerseyans are among the least depressed in the nation

In the same week that United Van Lines reported that New Jersey was the state with the highest number of departures comes a study that says we’re among the least depressed people in the nation. A website called QuoteWizard.com analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control from 2014-2018 to rank the states not only on overall depression but the increase/decrease in the population experiencing depression.

Hawaii is the only state that is less depressed than New Jersey, which makes sense if you’re living in paradise, but it’s hard for me to draw conclusions from the rest of the research. Oregon, Maine, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Kentucky are the most depressed. I don’t know what those states have in common; obviously three of them are southern states, but the other two most certainly are not.

Following Hawaii and New Jersey as the least depressed are California, New York, and Texas; again, I don’t know what the common denominator is. New Jersey experienced nearly a 12% drop in depression rates in the years studied. We can start the new year knowing that most of America believes that their lives suck more than ours. Yay, New Jersey!