MA Residents Among Nation's Least-Stressed: Study

It's probably hard to believe when you're sitting in stalled traffic on the Massachusetts Turnpike, but residents of the commonwealth are some of the least-stressed people in the nation — or so says a new analysis by the personal finance website WalletHub. Only two states have lower levels of stress owing to work, money, family and health worries.

The website's number-crunchers evaluated 40 metrics ranging from average commuting time to unemployment rates to separation and divorce rates to the share of adults suffering from depression, and then created a 100-point index used to rank the states.

Massachusetts scored just 32.39, good for 48th on the list, trailing only Minnesota (26.81) and Utah (31.69). The Bay State ranked 50th in terms of work-related stress, and no worse than 40th on other measures.

The 10 most-stressed states, with their scores, are:

1. Louisiana 59.94
2. Mississippi 58.71
3. Arkansas 56.20
4. Kentucky 54.77
5. West Virginia 54.68
6. New Mexico 54.57
7. Alabama 52.19 27
8. Nevada 51.06 38
9. Alaska 49.68
10. Oklahoma 49.48

The 10 least-stressed states are:

41. Montana 36.88
42. Hawaii 35.71
43. Wisconsin 35.49
44. New Hampshire 34.03
45. Iowa 33.73
46. South Dakota 33.18
47. North Dakota 32.67
48. Massachusetts 32.39
49. Utah 31.69
50. Minnesota 26.81