Living On WELL Street

Gallup recently published it’s Top 10 U.S. Wellbeing Discoveries in 2011. They include the following:

1. Lengthy unemployment lowers wellbeing - "Americans who have been out of work for 11 weeks or more are significantly less likely to be thriving and more likely to experiences worry, stress, sadness, and anger.”
2. Slight decrease in the obesity rate
3. More young adults had health insurance - a result of the new healthcare law that allows parents’ health insurance to cover adult children until age 26
4. Colorado still the most fit state - 20.1% obesity rate (34.3% in West Virginia)
5. Fewer Americans can afford the food they need
6. Fewer Americans get health insurance from their employer - shrinking to 44.5%
7. “Suffering” in the U.S. held steady at 4% - based on how people rate their lives
8. More than 1 in 6 American workers care for an elderly or disabled family member, relative or friend.
   
9. Unhealthy workers are very costly to business - they "miss an estimated 450 million additional days of work annually compared with those who are healthy. This results in a cost of more than $153 billion in lost productivity per year.”
10. A bad job is more harmful to wellbeing than being unemployed - employees who are emotionally disconnected from their work rate their lives worse than those who are unemployed.