South Dakotans are a happy bunch which we can credit with several things, including our regular Midwest nice-ness, lack of income tax, and the fact that we live in a beautiful state. While we natives know this to be true, it is always lovely to see non-natives acknowledge it, too, which is why we were even happier to see that this South Dakota town was just named one of the happiest in America:
Welcome to Sioux Falls, which - according to WalletHub and its recently released list of 2022's Happiest Cities in America, is one of the happiest places to live!
As per Wallethub - which compared 182 of the largest cities across 3 key dimensions - Sioux Falls is the 17th happiest city, with Fresno, California (pictured) dubbed the first and Detroit, Michigan the last.
In terms of the 3 key dimensions, Wallethub begins with Emotional and Physical Wellbeing (including Life-Satisfaction Index, Depression and Suicide Rates, and Adequate-Sleep Rate), for which Sioux Falls scored 20th overall.
The next factor that Wallethub used to gauge scores was Income and Employment (Income-Growth Rate, Poverty Rate, and Job Security, for starters), which - at 74th overall - affected Sioux Falls' overall score.
While Income and Employment may have dragged us down, Community and Environment (Separation and Divorce Rate, Hate-Crime Incidents per Capita, and Acres of Parkland per 1,000 Residents) picked us back up again with a score of 27.
