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Numerous_Vegetable_3 t1_isyxxcp wrote

Just drive anywhere inside the ring of 495 and you'll instantly understand.

Also, there seems to be a correlation between state's education levels and stress. The lesser educated ones... aren't really worrying too much. Ignorance is bliss.

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Kissfan07 t1_isyzyqw wrote

Where’d you find that information?

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Numerous_Vegetable_3 t1_isz4udu wrote

I... looked at both sets of data and noticed a lot of things in common.

I said it the way I did to be very clear that it isn't a study and just something I noticed from my own observations. "Seems to be a correlation" isn't stating fact. It means... I see a correlation.

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Kill_Religion_ASAP t1_iszd7cw wrote

It’s common sense

What you need an article for that?

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Kissfan07 t1_it24kas wrote

Common sense says stress levels are lower in lower educated people?

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[deleted] t1_iszbgaz wrote

[removed]

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Kissfan07 t1_it24h9a wrote

You see a correlation between low education and low stress levels just by driving around?? That’s amazing. You must be special.

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Unique-Public-8594 t1_isyvonx wrote

Briefly:

Most stressed states:

  1. Connecticut

  2. Vermont

  3. Massachusetts

Based on google searches

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sad0panda t1_iszyyl7 wrote

I moved from Mass to VT and my stress level went way down.

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WinsingtonIII t1_it04j2m wrote

It depends on your situation and what you want from where you live. Vermont is beautiful and I love the hiking and outdoor options there. That said, I'm not sure I could personally live there outside of Burlington as I really value walkability and basically nowhere in VT has that to the level I need other than Burlington (even then you're in an isolated island of walkability).

Vermont also has high cost of living for a rural state, and unlike MA it doesn't have the high-paying jobs of a major metro area. Remote workers making high wages probably have easy lives in VT, it's probably harder and more stressful for people working for lower wages in a high cost state where there aren't tons of job options.

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costcocosmonaut t1_it0q79r wrote

Maybe it’s embarrassing but I thought Brattleboro had really decent walkability when I lived there. It seemed a lot of the little downtowns were somewhat walkable compared to a lot of suburban US.

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WinsingtonIII t1_it21a92 wrote

No, that's not embarrassing, I agree that some of the smaller towns in VT actually have nice little walkable downtowns. Brattleboro is definitely included in that.

The issue is more that those downtowns are quite small and once you get outside of them the walkability drops off completely as it generally becomes immediately rural. For some people that's fine, but I like density and being able to walk around more than just a small downtown area, so even though I enjoy visiting these places I'm not sure I could live in them.

I have a similar issue with coastal Maine outside of Portland. I love a lot of the coastal towns, and they often have great little downtowns, but that's it for the walkability and they are basically small islands of walkability all separated from each other.

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sad0panda t1_it0b752 wrote

Yes, it certainly helps that my employer is in MA, still pays me the same wage, and lets me work remote.

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beeinabearcostume t1_it00a2s wrote

I dunno I was always pretty stressed when my favorite sandwich guy at City Market wasn’t behind the counter.

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OptimalFlight101 t1_isyzq41 wrote

I wonder what the criterias are. We have a ton of students and early adult professionals here and they are expectedly to be stressed.

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Unique-Public-8594 t1_isz0hae wrote

Criteria: based on google search terms like “stress” “deppression”, etc

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OptimalFlight101 t1_it03qwu wrote

Seeing how we have so many health professionals and schools this hardly seems like a proper measuring standard.

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WinsingtonIII t1_it0gi6t wrote

It hardly seems like a proper measuring standard no matter the context. Just googling a term doesn't mean someone suffers from that term.

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ChanceTheGardenerr t1_it0i96l wrote

But you can’t extrapolate the argument from the given data that somehow these people are more/less stressed than people who don’t search these terms.

Sloppy sloppy sloppy

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TywinShitsGold t1_it035f6 wrote

How the hell is there stress in VT. Everyone’s stoned out of their damned minds.

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WinsingtonIII t1_it03xl2 wrote

The cost of living is high there for a rural state, and yet it doesn't have particularly high wage jobs given it is rural. Just one possibility that comes to mind.

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Upthespurs1882 t1_it24img wrote

Californians are moving in at a staggering rate and the housing market has priced out a majority of locals. It’s a bummer, I hardly recognize the place I grew up in

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2aoij wrote

Wow, Californians are moving to Vermont? Kind of surprises me. I thought they would mostly just go to Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, etc. if they wanted mountains and cheaper CoL.

I guess California is so big that even if most are going to states like that, even a few thousand going to a small state like Vermont could feel meaningful.

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Unique-Public-8594 t1_it04ehi wrote

Well, these results are based on goggle searches for words like “depression”. Maybe Vermonters search for information on depression because they don’t know what it is. Or because they are going out-of-state to see depressed relatives for the holidays.

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Thisbymaster t1_isz29gc wrote

Large amounts of college students per capita. And a road system that was never redesigned from the first cow paths.

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zachmorrison24 t1_iszfnvo wrote

MA may be the moodiest state. Just read an article stating that they were the happiest state, now this?

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Dasmer t1_isziumc wrote

New England, baby. We’re miserable fucks, but we’re happy miserable fucks.

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Balsac_is_Daddy t1_it1wvkr wrote

Lol this really is the best way to describe us. January-March can be such a depressing time, but we slog through and the rest of the year makes it all worthwhile, to me anyway.

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[deleted] t1_it00czt wrote

It speaks to how much the country fucking sucks. The infrastructure, physically and socially, in most of the country is abysmal. I used to have to travel to deep deep West Virginia, the Dakotas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana for work (O&G stuff), and coming back it felt like the speech from the end of Blade Runner. "You wouldn't believe what I've seen". They're angry people, angry mostly at themselves, and projecting that anger outward.

It's hard to put into words the feeling of going to a country with regular healthcare and social programs and education and coming back to the US. MA is one of the few places that even tries to keep pace. And on top of that we have to support people killing themselves "to own the libs".

I'm gonna be called an "ivory tower liberal" or some shit despite that I grew up on scraps, but guys I'm telling you, those rural white people are angrier than you think, much wealthier than you think, angrier than you think, and for dumber reasons than you think. There is no "economic anxiety", most of them are wealthier than people in cities. I'm a brown guy with a Boston accent, I've been physically threatened with violence by people on work sites. First time I went to West Virginia, a guy who I thought I had a great day with, slammed his Confederate flag wallet on the table at lunch, and would not take his eyes off me. The site boss whispered to me to not get out of my seat and to keep my cool, for my own safety because he couldnt control that guy.

So yeah, we're stressed up here because we do our best to keep the country afloat while they want to actively kill us. I don't like that guy, but I wish him well and love him and hope what we do here keeps him fed. I'd rather be here than anywhere else in the country, but everywhere else in the country is actively trying to hurt us for it.

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2bltk wrote

I mean, the "metric" they are measuring here is just how often people in a state Google terms like "depression."

This stuff isn't exactly a scientific study...

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paganlobster t1_it3r3k7 wrote

lol that is definitely worth pointing out. So many of these whackadoo studies get reported as news, as if they're peer reviewed and replicated and definitely very real science when the opposite is true.

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uneven_lotus t1_isz8r9g wrote

I was just reading recently that Massachusetts was the happiest/one of the happiest states and my immediate thought was that the level this state experiences on average might override that, experientially. Nice to see the high-stress part confirmed.

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HammerfestNORD t1_iszw8u8 wrote

Lots of smart people looking at the world shit show:

U.S. elections

Trumpnutters

Ukraine

Taiwan and China

Climate change that's going to rid us all much quicker than most acknowledge.

Ha, ha, ha....yeah... Stress!

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UncleCustard t1_iszs2dx wrote

No shit. But I thought we were the happiest?

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mrpickleby t1_isztija wrote

Weren't we the happiest state last week?

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lsandre2005 t1_it097i5 wrote

Last week we were the happiest state

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NightWalk77 t1_it2e3m3 wrote

How can Mass be both happiest and 3rd most tressed unless being stressed makes us happy? If so time for this state to get some therapy.

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Quirky_Butterfly_946 t1_isytsqy wrote

I will totally agree and the stress is all self made because MA does not know how to create a positive environment. Too many cars/traffic, overly complicated and aggravating processes to get anything, overbuilding so people no longer have any quiet spaces, too much conversation about everything even the minute stuff that takes away from people being able to have moments to themselves.

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WinsingtonIII t1_isyw3p3 wrote

> too much conversation about everything

What? If anything people in MA and New England are pretty reserved. If you think small talk is bad up here, don't go to the Midwest or South, you have random people coming up and chatting with you all the time there.

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Quirky_Butterfly_946 t1_isyzmuz wrote

Are you kidding me? Everywhere you turn someone, something, is trying to occupy your mind. You can't even drive down the highway with the state throwing up more nonsense on their message boards. Everyone needs to dissect every aspect of news, social issues, politics, stupid stuff that morons post online. It may be semi-passive, but it is still the white noise that is constantly being pushed at people. You do not even have to be one of those phone addicts to feel like at every turn something is trying get at you. They need to occupy every facet of your life like a 3 year old screaming in the background.

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WinsingtonIII t1_isz0ezr wrote

That's not what my life is like here at all, with all due respect it sounds like you need to step back and take a deep breath for your own sanity.

I would hardly classify traffic announcements on the highway as being that intrusive, just don't read them if it bothers you that much.

Most of what you say regarding social issues, politics, etc. just sounds like modern social media/internet culture, not specifically Massachusetts culture. I find that overwhelming too sometimes, and it's probably best to spend less time online if you feel like you are overwhelmed by that stuff as honestly I don't have anyone trying to aggressively talk to me about politics in real life, just online. And that is hardly a MA-specific thing, it's an internet thing.

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fireball_jones t1_iszektp wrote

Vermont is also on this list. You could easily spend a life in Vermont and talk to no one.

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CLS4L t1_it07r61 wrote

But we were the happiest last week enough lists AWS it no Netflix

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Max_minutia t1_it08w23 wrote

I don’t understand how anyone in Vermont is stressed.

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HairyTwo474 t1_it0gu9i wrote

And another study said MA is the happiest state in the country based on 20 factors

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J_Worldpeace t1_it0i0o1 wrote

Weren't we the happiest like last weeklon this sub?

I'm going with we are the most susceptible to click bait articles..

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BrnInD80s t1_it0mmm0 wrote

Maybe they need to switch to Indica

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Slackman0000 t1_it0qx3h wrote

It's all the traffic at 8am on 128. It's enough to drive a man to rage.

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Sayoria t1_it1ordy wrote

I'd be less stressed out if we were our own country, so our money was our money and we could actually work on our infrustructure and social services. But as long as we are drilled to giving so much money to other states that vote to strip our rights, I fucking hate it.

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MrRemoto t1_it01l3t wrote

Yeah, it's stressful keeping up this massive quality of life index score.

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vartanarsen t1_it0c08g wrote

It’s the taxes making us miserable here in Ma having to pay for a welfare state we can’t afford . True socialism (Scandinavia) is when everyone pays in and everyone benefits, here it’s the hard working mid to high middle class paying in and not qualifying for anything, so the lefties hammering for socialism is not real , they’re hammering for a welfare state where I pay in and I get nothing. My property taxes are in the double digit thousands to pay for my schools and police, which is cool. But then why do I have to pay mass tax to pay for the other towns whose residents aren’t paying double digit property. Then why am I funding South Carolina, who don’t have high property tax, I’m paying triple like a goddam being hit like piñata, with my Property, Mass, and federal….and so yeah I’m pissed, ….”get up and leave” is not the solution to my points above. All I can I say thank the Citizens for Limited taxation for triggering that 1986 law giving at least some of our money back

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2buxu wrote

Our tax burden is roughly average for a US state: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494

21st in the nation and only 0.58% of income above Texas, which is often thought of as a "low tax" state.

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vartanarsen t1_it2fxj5 wrote

you clearly didnt see where im talking about double digit thousands in Property tax

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2gak7 wrote

I mean that's very dependent on what town you live in, property tax is set by the municipality, not at a statewide level. I don't pay anywhere near double digit thousands annually, my property tax rate would have to double to hit $10k annually.

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vartanarsen t1_it2hh8r wrote

It does matter, because Im paying high for my town to pay for our polkice etc, but then im paying double to mass to pay for the other towns whose residents arent pulling their weight in paying their police etc., then im paying tripple federally for southern states.
You didnt read my entire post

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2imc6 wrote

I agree that paying for failing southern states is frustrating, but that's a federal taxation issue, really nothing MA can control.

As for our state taxes funding things like MassHealth, ConnectorCare, etc. it's hard to complain about that as they are valuable programs that help people and make MA have the lowest uninsured rate in the nation. A welfare state isn't about "how can I personally benefit", it's about helping people who need help. I think our state could and should continue to improve its welfare state so it helps more people, but it's already more extensive and helps more people than in most US states.

Either way, my initial point was simply that complaining about taxes in a state with very average taxes seems a bit silly. There really aren't that many states with noticeably lower taxes than MA. The middle 30 or so states are roughly the same as MA and there are 10-15 that are noticeably higher. So maybe 5-10 states total where the difference is actually noticeably lower. If someone wants to move to one of those states, that's fine, but it's hardly like MA is New York and is leading the nation in tax burden.

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vartanarsen t1_it2js9a wrote

Got it so your solution to me is to move to Lowell or Lawrence so people in Andover can pay for my police and fire and school ? Or move south ?

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WinsingtonIII t1_it2knyq wrote

If property taxes are bothering you, then sure, move to a town with lower property taxes. The idea that only Lowell or Lawrence have lower property taxes is ridiculous, I live in a nice town with pretty good schools and the property taxes seem much more reasonable than yours. My house would have to be assessed at $900k (and assessments always lag the actual market, mine is assessed at ~$150k below market rate) to be paying >$10k annually property taxes, in which case I would be comfortably upper middle class so I'd have a hard time complaining.

Otherwise, you just seem mad about stuff that isn't specific to Massachusetts, so no idea what to tell you there.

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