This Surprising State With A Bad Rap Has America's Lowest Rate Of Adult Depression

New Jersey is the angst capital of the United States. And, a state that is frequently trashed in media, culture, and conversation. While the teasing is generally light-hearted, on top of New Jersey's bad rap, it has produced some of the country's most famous bands that sing about escaping their hometowns. And yet, despite maybe having the East Coast's highest export of emo bands, this surprising state has the lowest rate of adult depression.

From the outside, driving down the Jersey Turnpike, this statistic seems unlikely. But maybe everyone is hanging out in iconic and vibrant Atlantic City, home to the world's longest boardwalk. Wallethub released its 2025 report ranking the happiest states in America based on several factors, including depression rates, feelings of productivity, income growth, unemployment rates, and more.

While New Jersey did not top the list as the happiest state in the union (although it's close: it landed in 4th place), it does have the lowest rates of depression in adults, according to the survey, which considered a number of factors. Still, while not the happiest state in the union, this is a pretty good title to claim. And if you're wondering, the sun-soaked, beachy paradise of Hawaii is the 'happiest state in America.'

In its Happiest States in America Report, WalletHub used several factors to determine how happy the average person in each state is. These factors are divided into smaller categories covering emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community and environment. New Jersey, while not the happiest state, was found to have the highest rates of positive emotional and physical well-being. Rates of adult depression were found to be the lowest based on the personal finance website's survey metrics.

Emotional and physical well-being, along with the other two categories, were allotted 50 points total, which were broken down into subcategories with different weights. In total, WalletHub gave the share of adult depression in each state quadruple weight (or ~8.70 points) in its assessment of state happiness. In doing so, it said, "This metric measures the share of adults aged 18 years and older who were diagnosed with depression." Obviously, this only accounts for those who have been diagnosed and may not be a fully accurate representation of the whole state; however, the sample size performed the best out of the fifty states.

New Jersey is also a coastal state. It has got sunshine and beach weather for a good chunk of the year, plus a real fall and spring with their own nice weather patterns to get residents through winter. The most depressing winter city in America, Anchorage, is all the way on the other side of the country. When picking which state you're going to move to, this report says that location really does matter.