A Little of Honesty Helps Us Understand the Quality of Life in California

Evidently, a recently conducted survey found that California offers the worst quality of life in all 50 states.  Of course, this is all over Fox News, as its viewers are dying for corroboration that liberals are suffering terribly, by means of their wanton disregard for America’s true values (assault weapons, Evangelical Christianity, homophobia, bigotry, etc.)

It’s stuff like this that sends me running to Snopes.com, but sure enough, such a survey was actually conducted by U.S. News and World Report.

Yet to someone who lives here, this sure seems counter-intuitive.  We’re the 6th largest economy in the world, we’re the planet’s hub for both technology innovation and entertainment, our beaches are packed with locals and tourists from all over the world, the demand for housing keeps rising, and “I wish they all could be California girls,” as they say in song.  Moreover, California is home to one-quarter of America’s billionaires; people who can live anywhere they want seem to enjoy at least something about this place.

So let’s look deeper: What did the survey ask?  Which state finished first?  What do they have a lot of that’s somehow missing in sunny California?

Well, as it turns out, a) the survey was based on two criteria: absence of pollution and “community involvement,” and b) North Dakota finished first.

Ah!  I might have asked about economic opportunity (my net worth was $60 to the penny when I arrived here, as I remember all too well).

Let’s try to corroborate the surveys findings.  Are there lots of Californians moving to North Dakota? Uh, no.

For even more simplicity, let’s just look at the overall “happiness index.” California ranks #4.

Over the years, I’ve done many hundreds of market research projects for clients including 3M, FedEx, H-P, Philips Electronics, Unisys, 3Com, and AT&T–and I’ve presented the findings of these projects to executive teams on three different continents.  All I can say about the survey discussed above is that I’m glad I never had to answer a client who asked, “Uh, Shields, do you mind explaining how it’s possible that a  state that ranks #4 in happiness has the lowest quality of life?  Are you saying that happiness isn’t a factor in quality of life? Btw, where did you learn how to design surveys? Jiffy Lube?”

What happened here, of course, is that the survey’s authors set out to prove something, and found a path to do it, albeit a specious and dishonest one.  A little integrity would have been mucho apreciado, but apparently it just wasn’t there.