Being a federal civil servant doesn’t guarantee one eternal happiness. But it may help.

For the second year in a row two very federally impacted Virginia counties—Loudoun and Fairfax—have been ranked numbers one and two in the happiest counties in America study compiled by SmartAsset.com. Both are home to huge numbers of federal workers, federal contractors and other professionals who provide services both to Uncle Sam and the people who work for him. York county, also in Virginia, ranked 5th in the top ten grouping. It too is close to many federal installations and a favorite retirement spot for many up-scale federal workers.

With a million plus residents Fairfax is the largest in Virginia which is a chock-full-of-feds state. It has more residents than any county in the Old Dominion State.

Howard County in Maryland ranked 5th in the happy-happy-happy category. Howard is close to hundreds of federal facilities in both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., including the Social Security Administration’s massive Woodlawn facility and the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade.

Others on the happy places list included Delaware County, Ohio (north of Columbus); Carver County, Minnesota; Chester County, Pennsylvania; Ozaukee County, Wisconsin; and Douglas County, Colorado.

Although money isn’t everything, including the secret to happiness, it obviously helps. All of the counties had a number of things in common including household income, low poverty, a high marriage rate, and health. Life expectancy in most was around 83 which is eight to nine years higher than in many not-so-happy places in the U.S.

In other studies of wealth-by-ZIP code Potomac, Maryland (20854) and McLean, Virginia (22102) are ranked near the top, along with Chevy Chase, Maryland (20815) and Vienna, Virginia (22182). Those are the home ZIP codes of lots of top paid federal workers, political appointees and big bucks lawyers and journalists who live, so to speak, off the government and its doings. The three richest ZIP codes in the nation are Greenwich, Connecticut (06830); Beverly Hills, California (90210 duuuuh!!!); and Lake Forest, Illinois (60045), which probably don’t have that many federal worker residents and probably don’t lead the list in number of stable marriages.

Bottom line: There is no proof that being a career civil servant makes one happy or long-lived. On the other hand it may be that you are doing something right, no matter what some colleagues or your significant other says.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By David Thornton

Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital.

Source: OMG Facts

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