Chapter 6.3 · The ladder and the day

Life evaluation and daily feelings

Gallup respondents in the most deprived tenth of counties rate their lives 0.24 ladder points lower than those in the least deprived tenth, a gap near zero or below at the same household income, characteristics and county rent.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 9 October 2026

Gallup asks respondents to place their lives on a ladder whose bottom rung is the worst possible life and whose top rung is the best possible one. From 2009 to 2017, respondents in the least deprived tenth of counties placed theirs at 7.17 on average. Respondents in the most deprived tenth placed theirs at 6.93. The tenths are tenths of interviews, ranked by the deprivation of the county where each respondent lives, so each tenth is a group of people and not a list of counties.

The ladder score is lower in more deprived counties

The question is the Cantril ladder, and it records a judgment of a life as a whole.[1] The mean score in the most deprived tenth of counties is 0.24 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.31) ladder points lower than in the least deprived tenth, and the point estimates fall from each tenth to the next (Figure 1). Deprivation is measured with the Area Deprivation Index, averaged over the tracts of the county and weighted by tract population. Ranked by the index of the respondent's ZIP area instead, the fall is longer.

Figure 1

The ladder score is 0.24 points lower in the most deprived tenth of counties, 0.13 points higher at the same nominal household income and other characteristics, and −0.02 once county rent levels also enter

Mean Cantril ladder score by decile of the deprivation of the respondent's county and ZIP area, as interviewed and after comparing respondents within cells, with the gap at each step

The ladder score falls from 7.17 to 6.93 across deciles of county deprivation and from 7.29 to 6.87 across deciles of ZIP-area deprivation

Unweighted mean Cantril ladder score by decile of the Area Deprivation Index of the respondent's county and of the respondent's ZIP area, Gallup U.S. Daily interviews 2009 to 2017

Both lines fall from the least to the most deprived tenth, and the ZIP-area line falls further. Each point is an unweighted mean for about a tenth of interviews with a 95% interval clustered by county.

Show data

Data for The ladder score is 0.24 points lower in the most deprived tenth of counties, 0.13 points higher at the same nominal household income and other characteristics, and −0.02 once county rent levels also enter, As interviewed
conf_high	conf_low	decile	estimate	n	n_units	place
7.23	7.11	1	7.17	218,776	45	County deprivation
7.17	7.09	2	7.13	220,210	85	County deprivation
7.15	7.08	3	7.11	225,715	110	County deprivation
7.14	7.07	4	7.10	215,982	134	County deprivation
7.12	7.07	5	7.10	220,790	168	County deprivation
7.12	7.06	6	7.09	223,139	198	County deprivation
7.08	7.03	7	7.06	222,438	266	County deprivation
7.06	7.02	8	7.04	223,727	350	County deprivation
7.00	6.96	9	6.98	222,937	563	County deprivation
6.94	6.91	10	6.93	223,260	1,205	County deprivation
7.34	7.24	1	7.29	213,516	203	ZIP-area deprivation
7.24	7.15	2	7.20	215,235	343	ZIP-area deprivation
7.19	7.13	3	7.16	217,052	465	ZIP-area deprivation
7.15	7.10	4	7.13	217,305	614	ZIP-area deprivation
7.12	7.08	5	7.10	216,938	767	ZIP-area deprivation
7.07	7.03	6	7.05	217,457	964	ZIP-area deprivation
7.04	7.01	7	7.03	217,491	1,197	ZIP-area deprivation
7.00	6.97	8	6.98	217,224	1,451	ZIP-area deprivation
6.93	6.91	9	6.92	217,621	1,656	ZIP-area deprivation
6.88	6.85	10	6.87	217,263	1,806	ZIP-area deprivation

Both lines fall from the least to the most deprived tenth, and the ZIP-area line falls further. Each point is an unweighted mean ladder score for a tenth of interviews, with a 95% interval clustered by county. The second tab compares respondents of the same age, sex, race, education and nominal household income, and the third shows the gap as each characteristic and county rent enter. Values in Table 2.

Note: Gallup's extract has no survey weights, so every estimate is unweighted and levels can differ from the weighted figures Gallup publishes. County comes from the respondent's ZIP code and is approximate near county lines. The ladder is the evaluative measure and the feelings are experiential measures; they are never combined into one index.Note: Deciles are cut once on every interview that has the deprivation measure, so each holds about a tenth of interviews and every item uses the same cut points. County deprivation is the mean of the tract Area Deprivation Index national ranks (1 = least deprived), weighted by tract population. The ZIP code is treated as the ZCTA of the same number, whose index is an area-weighted approximation; Connecticut has no ZCTAs in the project files and drops out of the ZIP-area line.Note: The second and third tabs use one sample at every step, the interviews that report age, sex, race, education, household income and a county rent. Education has three levels and ages above the oldest five-year band share it. Household income is in nominal dollars and does not reflect differences in the cost of living across counties; the top bracket has no upper limit.Note: The rent step adds a quintile of the county's HUD two-bedroom Fair Market Rent for fiscal year 2025, which stands in for relative price levels in the interview years. Counties in a metro share the metro's rent. Where the rent is allowed for, the data cannot separate a place difference from a price difference.Source: Gallup U.S. Daily, ladder 2009-2017; unweighted, intervals clustered by county; Area Deprivation Index 2023 and ACS 2019-2023 tract population joined on the respondent's county or ZIP code; unweighted

The unit is the person, but the deprivation measures describe the person's county or ZIP area. A comparison between tenths of places is therefore partly a comparison between kinds of people.

Gallup interviews from 2008 to 2017, without survey weights

The data are the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, 3,530,270 interviews from 2008 to 2017, with new respondents each year and no one followed over time. The ladder estimates leave out 2008, when political questions came before the ladder and made it run low.[2] The county comes from the respondent's ZIP code and is approximate near county lines. The extract has no survey weights, the adjustments that let a sample stand for the population it was drawn from. Every figure is therefore unweighted, and levels can differ from the weighted figures Gallup publishes. Intervals are 95% intervals clustered by the respondent's county. The report gives every estimate with its interval and sample size.

At the same nominal income the gap turns, and rent removes it

The tenths differ in who lives in them. The chapter therefore compares each respondent only with others in the same cell of five-year age band, sex, race, education and household income bracket, on the same interviews at every step. On those interviews the ladder gap, measured as the most deprived tenth minus the least deprived, is −0.27 (95% CI −0.34 to −0.21) points before any comparison, and it narrows to −0.11 (95% CI −0.15 to −0.07) once education enters. Adding household income turns it to +0.13 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.16) points, so at the same nominal income the most deprived tenth scores higher.

That last step assumes that one nominal bracket means one standard of living in every county, and the data do not support that. Interviews in the least deprived tenth come from counties where the HUD two-bedroom Fair Market Rent averages $2,697 (95% CI $2,594 to $2,800) a month, against $943 (95% CI $932 to $953) in the most deprived tenth. The rents are for fiscal year 2025 and stand in for relative price levels in 2008 to 2017, and counties in a metro share one value. With a quintile of county rent added to the cells, the gap becomes −0.02 (95% CI −0.05 to 0.00) points (Figure 1, “Gap after each adjustment”). Counting each county once, instead of each interview, gives +0.02 (95% CI −0.03 to 0.07) points, so the sign of the reversal depends on prices and on weighting. These data cannot separate a place difference from a price difference.

Comparing within an income bracket also removes part of what the index measures. The index is built from income, education, employment and housing, and household income is one of the things a deprived place has less of. In these data the ladder gradient across places is gone once respondents are compared with others of the same education and income. Whether a gap of the opposite sign remains depends on the price of living.

Physical pain is the daily feeling that stays higher

Gallup also asked whether respondents experienced each of seven feelings during a lot of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, worry, stress, sadness, anger and physical pain. Those answers record a day rather than a life, and the chapter analyzes them beside the ladder without combining the two. The share reporting physical pain was 8.8 (95% CI 7.9 to 9.7) points higher in the most deprived tenth of counties than in the least deprived tenth. Apart from pain, no feeling differs by more than 2.1 points between the two tenths, and stress was less common in the most deprived tenth.

Figure 2

Physical pain is 8.8 percentage points more common in the most deprived tenth of counties, the largest gap of the seven feelings, and 1.8 at the same characteristics and 1.2 with county rent also allowed for

Difference in the share reporting each feeling a lot of the day yesterday, most deprived minus least deprived tenth of interviews by county deprivation, Gallup U.S. Daily 2008 to 2017

As interviewed
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income
Plus county rent level

Show data

Data for Physical pain is 8.8 percentage points more common in the most deprived tenth of counties, the largest gap of the seven feelings, and 1.8 at the same characteristics and 1.2 with county rent also allowed for
basis	conf_high	conf_low	estimate	feeling	n	n_units
As interviewed	−0.350	−2.10	−1.23	Enjoyment	525,461	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	2.16	0.990	1.58	Enjoyment	412,511	1,249
Plus county rent level	−0.090	−1.23	−0.660	Enjoyment	412,511	1,249
As interviewed	0.200	−1.41	−0.610	Happiness	493,755	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	2.43	1.17	1.76	Happiness	385,768	1,249
Plus county rent level	0.150	−1.09	−0.490	Happiness	385,768	1,249
As interviewed	0.190	−2.33	−1.07	Worry	526,425	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	−2.78	−4.62	−3.72	Worry	413,010	1,249
Plus county rent level	1.48	−0.400	0.520	Worry	413,010	1,249
As interviewed	−1.19	−3.08	−2.13	Stress	526,330	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	−1.58	−3	−2.33	Stress	412,916	1,249
Plus county rent level	1.18	−0.310	0.370	Stress	412,916	1,249
As interviewed	3.19	0.660	1.93	Sadness	494,753	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	−0.960	−2.40	−1.73	Sadness	386,323	1,249
Plus county rent level	1.25	−0.190	0.480	Sadness	386,323	1,249
As interviewed	0.250	−1.67	−0.710	Anger	421,120	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	−0.630	−1.87	−1.29	Anger	326,006	1,248
Plus county rent level	1.10	−0.230	0.400	Anger	326,006	1,248
As interviewed	9.68	7.87	8.77	Physical pain	526,330	1,250
Same age, sex, race, education and nominal income	2.26	1.38	1.81	Physical pain	412,916	1,249
Plus county rent level	1.70	0.820	1.23	Physical pain	412,916	1,249

Physical pain, drawn in color, is more common in the most deprived tenth, and its gap shrinks but stays above zero when characteristics and county rent are allowed for. Each dot is a difference in the unweighted share reporting the feeling, most minus least deprived tenth of counties, with a 95% interval clustered by county. The three dots per feeling are as interviewed, within cells at nominal income, and with a quintile of county rent added. Values in Table 3.

Comparing respondents within cells at nominal income shrinks the pain gap to 1.8 (95% CI 1.4 to 2.3) points, and with county rent also allowed for it is 1.2 (95% CI 0.8 to 1.7) points. Enjoyment and happiness move above zero at nominal income, which is the ladder's reversal again, and for them too it goes when county rent is allowed for. Stress is less common in the most deprived tenth as interviewed and at nominal income, and these data do not say why.

Pain tracks the county rate of deaths of despair

Felt despair is not a survey item, so the chapter compares the feelings with the county rate of deaths from suicide, drugs and alcohol in 2015, which Case and Deaton call deaths of despair.[3] The rate comes from the Joint Economic Committee's compilation of CDC data for larger counties. That file keeps it as a cross-check series and does not document its population base or whether it is age adjusted. The chapter checks it against CDC WONDER death rates for 2018 to 2023 in the complete counties of Chapter 8.2, Overdose, alcohol and suicide, the chapter that maps the deaths themselves. There the two rates correlate +0.81 (95% CI 0.77 to 0.84) across 534 counties, weighted by respondents.

Across larger counties, weighting each county by its respondents, the county share reporting pain correlates +0.65 (95% CI 0.61 to 0.69) with the rate (Figure 3). That is the highest of the seven feelings under every weighting and comparison the chapter tries. Stress and worry barely correlate under that weighting and are positive when each county counts once. The statement that stress and worry do not follow the rate therefore holds for the counties where most respondents live and not for all counties.

Figure 3

Physical pain is the feeling most closely tied to the county deaths-of-despair rate under every weighting and comparison, with a correlation of +0.65 across counties

Feelings and life ratings of Gallup U.S. Daily respondents against the deaths-of-despair rate of their county (ladder 2009 to 2017, feelings 2008 to 2017)

Across counties, the share reporting pain correlates +0.65 with the deaths-of-despair rate, the highest of the feelings, and +0.43 once respondents are compared within cells

Correlation across counties between the county mean of each item and the county rate of deaths of despair (CDC, 2015, as compiled by the Joint Economic Committee), counties with enough respondents, Gallup U.S. Daily (ladder 2009 to 2017, feelings 2008 to 2017)

Weighted by respondents
Each county once
Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income

Pain is the feeling with the strongest correlation under both weightings, and the ladder falls with the rate. Stress and worry barely correlate when counties are weighted by respondents but are positive when each county counts once. Each dot is a correlation across counties with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over counties.

Show data

Data for Physical pain is the feeling most closely tied to the county deaths-of-despair rate under every weighting and comparison, with a correlation of +0.65 across counties, Correlations across counties
conf_high	conf_low	estimate	group	measure	n_units	respondents
0.691	0.615	0.654	Weighted by respondents	Physical pain	1,337	2350453
0.627	0.536	0.582	Each county once	Physical pain	1,337	2350453
0.480	0.380	0.433	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Physical pain	1,331	1844740
0.410	0.197	0.308	Weighted by respondents	Sadness	1,337	2206239
0.522	0.385	0.453	Each county once	Sadness	1,337	2206239
0.061	−0.118	−0.030	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Sadness	1,331	1722909
0.167	−0.046	0.059	Weighted by respondents	Worry	1,337	2350793
0.447	0.286	0.364	Each county once	Worry	1,337	2350793
−0.048	−0.213	−0.134	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Worry	1,331	1845031
0.113	−0.099	0.007	Weighted by respondents	Anger	1,337	1875987
0.331	0.158	0.244	Each county once	Anger	1,337	1875987
0.029	−0.145	−0.062	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Anger	1,331	1452370
−0.009	−0.169	−0.088	Weighted by respondents	Stress	1,337	2350501
0.282	0.110	0.194	Each county once	Stress	1,337	2350501
−0.001	−0.151	−0.077	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Stress	1,331	1844805
0.010	−0.221	−0.102	Weighted by respondents	Happiness	1,337	2202015
−0.249	−0.420	−0.332	Each county once	Happiness	1,337	2202015
0.272	0.104	0.192	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Happiness	1,331	1720588
−0.027	−0.245	−0.133	Weighted by respondents	Enjoyment	1,337	2347130
−0.272	−0.447	−0.358	Each county once	Enjoyment	1,337	2347130
0.230	0.062	0.149	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Enjoyment	1,331	1843168
−0.326	−0.475	−0.405	Weighted by respondents	Ladder now	1,337	1981094
−0.355	−0.481	−0.420	Each county once	Ladder now	1,337	1981094
0.217	0.067	0.143	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Ladder now	1,331	1570386
−0.488	−0.596	−0.542	Weighted by respondents	Ladder in five years	1,337	1900184
−0.391	−0.509	−0.452	Each county once	Ladder in five years	1,337	1900184
−0.045	−0.172	−0.108	Weighted, same age, sex, race, education and income	Ladder in five years	1,331	1522554

Pain is the feeling with the strongest correlation under both weightings, and the ladder falls with the rate. This tab compares county averages with the 2015 rate in 1,337 larger counties. Each dot is a correlation with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over counties, and the first tab sorts respondents by fifth of the county rate. Values in Table 7.

Note: Gallup's extract has no survey weights, so every estimate is unweighted and levels can differ from the weighted figures Gallup publishes. County comes from the respondent's ZIP code and is approximate near county lines. The ladder is the evaluative measure and the feelings are experiential measures; they are never combined into one index.Note: The deaths-of-despair rate is a single 2015 cross-section covering the larger counties (suicide, alcohol and drug deaths, CDC multiple cause of death, compiled by the Joint Economic Committee). The file keeps it as a cross-check series and does not document its population base or age adjustment, so it is used here only to rank counties; the text checks it against CDC WONDER rates for 2018 to 2023. Fifths are cut on interviews in counties with a rate.Note: County means need a floor of respondents with each item, and the same counties enter every dot. The third dot of each row compares respondents within cells of five-year age band, sex, race, three-level education and household income bracket before averaging to counties, so it uses interviews that report every characteristic.Source: Gallup U.S. Daily, ladder 2009-2017 and feelings 2008-2017; unweighted, intervals clustered by county; county deaths of despair from the Joint Economic Committee compilation of CDC data for 2015

What the two kinds of measure show

The ladder and the feelings describe places and the people in them, and they share a direction without sharing a shape. The ladder is lower in more deprived counties as interviewed and rises with household income, and the ladder's income gradient is nearly the same in all three bands of county deprivation the chapter compares. Pain tracks both income and county deprivation, while stress follows neither much. The pain correlations are across counties, so they do not show that the people who report pain are the people who die. The Moving to Opportunity experiment assigned low-income families in public housing in five cities, by lottery, to an offer of a voucher usable only in a lower-poverty neighborhood, an unrestricted voucher or no offer.[4] It is the evidence on what places do to residents, and it covers neither the ladder nor these feelings.

What this survey cannot tell you

The interviews are a repeated cross-section, so the chapter shows differences between people and not changes within them. Comparing respondents within cells handles only what the survey records, and not health, disability, work or family, which go with pain. Household income is in nominal dollars and the rent file is a single fiscal year 2025 standard shared within metros, so the price comparison is a rough proxy. The index is the 2023 release and the interviews are from 2008 to 2017, which assumes that the ranking of places persisted.

Go deeper

The report: every estimate with its interval and sample size.
Tables: every figure of the report as a table.

Same question at another grain:

Well-being and life expectancy
- Chapter 8.4, Place and the length of a life Neighborhoods
Despair
- Chapter 8.2, Overdose, alcohol and suicide Counties

Data sources

Gallup U.S. Daily PollGallup U.S. Daily tracking poll: Cantril ladder now and in five years (2009-2017) and seven feelings yesterday (2008-2017), household income, age, sex, race and education; aggregates onlyYears: 2008-2017 · Weights: none (unweighted) · License: Proprietary Gallup microdata; respondent-level rows are not published
Area Deprivation IndexArea Deprivation Index 2023, national rank: tract ranks averaged to counties, and ZCTA ranks joined on the respondent's ZIP codeYears: 2023 release (version 4.0.1; built on ACS 2019-2023) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population for counties · License: Free for non-commercial use; cite the Neighborhood Atlas and Kind and Buckingham
American Community SurveyACS 2019-2023 tract population, the weight for county deprivationYears: 2019-2023 (5-year) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population · License: Public domain (U.S. Census Bureau)
JEC Social Capital IndexCounty rate of deaths of despair for 2015 (CDC multiple cause of death), as compiled by the Joint Economic Committee for 1,341 larger counties: a cross-check series whose population base and age adjustment are not documentedYears: 2018 release (components from about 2010-2016) · Weights: none (county rate) · License: Public domain (U.S. Government work, Joint Economic Committee)
CDC WONDER underlying cause of deathCDC WONDER underlying cause of death: county drug, alcohol and suicide counts and populations, 2018-2023, complete counties only, to check the JEC rateYears: 2018-2024 · Weights: none (crude rates from counts) · License: Public domain (NCHS, CDC); WONDER data-use restrictions apply
USALEEP life expectancyLife expectancy at birth, 2010-2015 deaths, 2020 tracts: the canonical variance split among states, counties and tracts, quoted from the chapter that owns itYears: 2010-2015 · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population · License: Public domain (NCHS, CDC)
Published estimates from cited studiesOne estimate from the Moving to Opportunity experiment (Ludwig and coauthors 2012) and two income thresholds from Kahneman and Deaton (2010) and Killingsworth and coauthors (2023), quoted beside their citationsYears: as reported in each study · Weights: as in the papers · License: Quoted from published research for commentary
HUD Fair Market RentsHUD Fair Market Rents, fiscal year 2025, two-bedroom, by FMR area averaged to counties: a stand-in for relative price levels in the interview yearsYears: fiscal year 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025) · Weights: none (one rent per FMR area) · License: Public domain (U.S. federal)

All data sources

References

Cantril, Hadley (1965). The Pattern of Human Concerns. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
Deaton, Angus (2012). The financial crisis and the well-being of Americans: 2011 OEP Hicks Lecture. Oxford Economic Papers 64(1): 1-26. doi:10.1093/oep/gpr051
Case, Anne; Deaton, Angus (2020). Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Ludwig, Jens; Duncan, Greg J.; Gennetian, Lisa A.; Katz, Lawrence F.; Kessler, Ronald C.; Kling, Jeffrey R.; Sanbonmatsu, Lisa (2012). Neighborhood effects on the long-term well-being of low-income adults. Science 337(6101): 1505-1510. doi:10.1126/science.1224648

How to cite

@misc{singh2026lifeevaluationanddailyfeelings,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Life evaluation and daily feelings},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/zipcode/life-evaluation-and-daily-feelings},
  note = {In ZIP Code Destiny. Published 9 October 2026.}
}