That is according to a recently released survey called the State of Well-Being (pdf) that has surveyed Americans and presented state-by-state reports on how people in that state view their lives. This is part of a long-term effort being produced by Gallup to provide some measure of American’s health and well-being. And according to this study, Delaware ranks dead last among states for Work Environment, going down from last year’s ranking of 38th among the states. Here’s a summary of the data:
| Index Score | State Rank | |||
| Category | 2008 | 2009 | 2008 | 2009 |
| Overall well-being | 64.7 | 64.7 | 36 | 38 |
| Life Evaluation | 39.5 | 46.4 | 31 | 19 |
| Emotional Health | 77.2 | 78.1 | 45 | 32 |
| Physical Health | 74.8 | 75.6 | 43 | 35 |
| Healthy Behavior | 62.7 | 62.8 | 31 | 24 |
| Work Environment | 49.6 | 42.6 | 36 | 50 |
| Basic Access | 84.2 | 82.8 | 20 | 22 |
Dead last in job satisfaction. Probably the only people who are happy about their job prospects are bankers of the Wall Street type. And unemployment has hit hard here as it would in a small place where people know each other. But given that most of Delaware’s major business sectors have had very difficult sailing, these numbers may tell a more interesting tale. Government, banks, insurance, agriculture and tourism dominate the economy here, and every one of them has taken something of a hit over the past 12 months — layoffs, furloughs, increased benefits costs, loss of benefits, requirements for more hours for those that are left are probably part of it. And there doesn’t seem to be much relief from these reductions and impositions on workers any time soon. Plus some of these are in industries pretty notoriously not all that interested in Employee Satisfaction.
The better news here is that Delaware ranks pretty highly Life Evaluation (an assessment of your life now and what you think your life will be in 5 years) and increased its ranking over last year. We increased our overall ranking in other categories too (not Basic Access, though), so it looks like overall we are taking better care of ourselves and feeling pretty good about our lives — it is just that Work. Sucks.
So what do you think? Would your life be considerably improved if you could somehow change or eliminate your employer?