LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — A new Siena College poll shows that New Yorkers are 27% more satisfied with life than a year ago, while 33% are less satisfied than they were a year ago and 39% are as satisfied today as they were a year ago. According to the poll, 62.8% of New Yorkers are satisfied with life overall.

The last time Siena conducted this poll in 2018, 44% reported being more satisfied, and only 17% reported being less satisfied. Of 11 aspects of life, New Yorkers are currently most satisfied with their relationships with family and friends, as well as where they live, their spiritual life, their sense of belonging in their community, and their health.

“In 2018 we noted a decline in New Yorkers’ life satisfaction from 2008 when we first asked these questions, but after COVID, political turmoil, and now inflation, we see a significant drop among state residents in every category of life satisfaction,” said Siena College Research Institute Director Don Levy. “It has been a trying time for many New Yorkers. When considering all residents we see the largest drops in satisfaction with family relationships, where they live, their finances, what they do for work, and their health.”

Only 12% of New Yorkers are completely satisfied with their financial condition and 46% are either not very satisfied or not at all satisfied. About 75% are either not very or not at all satisfied with the world as a whole including political, economic, social, and environmental issues and trends, and the direction the world is going.

According to the poll, 24% of residents are completely satisfied with their work and 26% are completely satisfied with what they do for recreation.

Life satisfaction overall scores

  • Financial condition: 49.5%
  • Residence/Location: 68.9%
  • Work: 63.9%
  • Current health and vitality: 63.1%
  • Recreation: 57.8%
  • Family relationships: 74%
  • Life partner relationship: 72.8%
  • Friends and acquaintances: 71.7%
  • Community: 65%
  • World direction: 29.7%
  • Religion/spiritual life: 74.1%

“While every area of life satisfaction is down across New Yorkers, the highest levels of satisfaction, those areas that give us comfort remain our relationships with others and our religious or spiritual life,” Levy said.

Levy notes that women are less satisfied with their lives than men, those between the ages of 18 and 34 have the lowest overall satisfaction, and overall satisfaction among Black people is the lowest of any racial or ethnic group at 59%.

Methodology

The poll was conducted between June 14 and June 27 by random phone calls to 402 New York adults. Siena said surveyors asked for the youngest person in the household to take the survey.

Researchers asked respondents over the 11 aspects of life if they were completely, somewhat, not very, or not at all satisfied. A score of 100 was entered if the person was completely satisfied and a score of zero was entered if a person was not at all satisfied. The total overall score is the average of the scores across all 11 areas.