High sense of well-being in Hawaii aids incumbents

The numbers are in. Hawaii, you look marvelous.

You feel great, you are healthy, you are living right; you are a happy, happy camper.

Two thumbs, way up.

The results come from the polling company Gallup combined with the health care firm Healthways. Together they surveyed more than 1.4 million Americans for more than four years (http://goo.gl/xM9hx).

They asked about your emotional health, your life situation and expected life situation five years from now. They checked your body mass index, number of sick days, how you felt about your job, whether you had a job and your access to food, shelter and a safe place to live.

It found that the happiest place in the country is not in California or Florida, but here in Hawaii.

In both 2010 and 2011, Hawaii was No. 1 in the "well-being index," which is a composite of six scores used to judge your well-being.

You may be thinking: "Of course, we are happy; just how happy would you be living in Detroit in February?"

If you are a politician, this is important stuff, because happy people don’t rock the boat. Satisfied voters are not going to dump the incumbent.

Happy voters think: If they liked today, why change tomorrow?

What we have in Hawaii is a low fed-up factor.

As we dig into those numbers, some of the euphoria starts to dim.

First, we used to be better. In 2010 the state’s well-being index was 71. This year it is 70.2.

Our "life evaluation," which is the evaluation of your situation and how you expect it to change in five years, has dropped from 64 to 59. That index portion drops from first to second in the nation.

On the question of overall physical health, we went from first to fourth in the country.

But in the area of healthy behavior we went from fifth in the country to first.

If there is a serious concern, it is in our ranking for "work environment," which surveys workers on their feelings and perceptions about their work environments.

In that category Hawaii went from 32 to 44.

The national study surveyed Hawaii by various geographical areas. More than 1,000 Hawaii residents were surveyed.

Attention, Mayor Carlisle, Honolulu is not really the Magic Kingdom. It carries a Well-Being index as the sixth best mid-sized city in the country. In 2010, it was fifth. No. 1 was Lancaster, Pa.

The work environment really took a dive, going from 100 to 169.

That, however, is not the worst news for incumbents. Hawaii’s two members of Congress have seen the ratings for their congressional districts dramatically slip.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa’s urban Honolulu 1st Congressional District dropped from fourth best in 2010, to 57th in 2011.

Rep. Mazie Hirono fared no better, going from ninth to 31st. The congressional district that scored the best was California’s 14th District, which is part of the Silicon Valley area represented by Democrat Anna G. Eshoo.

The country’s worst-off district is Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District, represented by Republican Harold Rogers. It is in Appalachia and considered one of America’s more impoverished districts, according to the 2010 census.

Of course, there are other ways of measuring Hawaii’s quality of life. The Automobile Magazine driver’s misery index, for example, says only three states offer drivers a worse experience than Hawaii.

And our part of the famous misery index, which is the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate, puts Hawaii in 34th place.

Politicians, however, will see the well-being index as a sign of their own well-being in the fall elections.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.