SACRAMENTO, Calif. – For nearly a year now, lawmakers in California have been trying to figure out what makes Californians happy. The idea being that happiness can have a lot of beneficial impacts, like better health and productivity. A new report from the California Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes took a look at all of California’s 58 counties and ranked them by their happiness levels.
Alpine County, just south of Lake Tahoe, was deemed the happiest county in the state according to the committee’s new report. The committee got the data from a Gallup World Happiness Report. The survey polled residents between 2009 and 2018, and asked them to rate their happiness on a scale from 1 to 10.