The correlates of current life satisfaction are well known: wealthier, more educated, healthier, religious, and employed respondents are, on average, more positive. Men are less happy than their female counterparts; whites, blacks, and Hispanics are all happier than Asians.

The Healthways poll confirms most of these findings, with one significant exception: poor blacks score markedly higher than the average. Poor whites and poor Hispanics score lower, as expected. Poverty is defined here as the bottom four income categories in the Gallup Poll, corresponding roughly to the U.S. poverty line of around $20,000 in household income per year. Approximately 20 percent of the sample is in this category. At the other end of the scale, 15 percent of the sample is ‘rich,’ with a household income of more than $10,000 per month.

The rich are happier on average; and here, race has little impact. Indeed, the coefficients on the interaction terms in the multivariate regression analysis (including controls for age, being religious, and region) on rich blacks and Hispanics are actually negative, while the one for rich whites is insignificant.

Read the article “Black Americans the Most Optimistic Racial Group” on brookings.edu.