Maine Is a Wonderful Place to Live—So Why Are We So Miserable?

Maine is a wonderful place to live.

The state is incredibly beautiful, exceptionally clean, has an outstanding food scene, plenty of things to do, and is wonderfully remote.

However—at least according to one report—it's loaded with miserable people. Ummm, what?

Maine Has Been Named One of the Unhappiest States in the Nation

WalletHub, a personal finance website, recently published its annual report on the happiest states in America. Our great state was nowhere near the top. In fact, it wasn’t just in the bottom half—it was the lowest-ranked state in New England. So, basically, Maine is the unhappiest state in the entire region. That’s a stunner. I mean, we’ve all been to Connecticut. How on Earth did they finish ahead of us?

Maine finished in 33rd place, directly ahead of Indiana and just below Montana. The rankings were based on three major categories: Emotional and Physical Well-Being, Work Environment, and Community and Environment. These were further broken down into 30 subcategories, making the analysis impressively detailed. You can read about the methodology [here].

Maine actually scored very highly in the Work Environment category, finishing 8th overall. This category includes employment opportunities, job security, and salary growth. It's encouraging to see this score, considering how poorly we did elsewhere. Who knows how far we would’ve fallen without it?

Our next-best (if you can call it that) showing was in Emotional and Physical Well-Being, where Maine landed in 36th place. It’s probably not ideal to rank that low in such an important category. Lacking in both physical and emotional health is basically a serious cry for help.

But wait—it gets worse.

When it comes to Community and Environment, Maine placed a dreadful 40th. That’s brutal. Apparently, our weather isn’t ideal. Well, no kidding. There must be other factors—like divorce rates and volunteer hours—that helped drag us down.

What are the Happiest States in New England?

Here’s how every New England state ranked in the report:

5. Connecticut (I don't believe this)
8. New Hampshire
9. Massachusetts
26. Rhode Island
29. Vermont

Overall, it's a bad look for our state. Nobody wants to be the worst of their peers, and that’s exactly what Maine is to New England in this report.

READ MORE: Baxter's Knife Edge Trail Named Maine’s Most Breathtaking Hike

As for the happiest state? That title goes to Hawaii. Shocked, right?

And the unhappiest? Congratulations to West Virginia. As a West Virginia University alum, I can confirm—it's pretty miserable down there when the Mountaineer football team is struggling.

You can find the full rankings here.

And hey—cheer up, folks. It’s just a report. There’s simply no way we’re more miserable than the people from Connecticut.