COLONIE — Forty-four percent of New Yorkers are more satisfied with their life today than they were a year ago, according to a poll released by Siena College Research Institute.
But, overall, people are not as satisfied as they were a decade ago, and 17 percent say they are less satisfied than a year ago while 39 percent are as satisfied today as last year.
“It’s been 10 years since we asked New Yorkers these questions about life satisfaction,” said Siena College Research Institute Director Don Levy. “We were surprised to find that the overall score in eight of the eleven areas were lower today than in 2008. Given that 2008 saw a recession, we expected satisfaction with personal finances to be higher today than 10 years ago but it has fallen.”
Of the 11 individual categories:
- 90 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their familial relationships
- 88 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their life partner or significant other
- 99 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with friends, acquaintances and other contacts
- 79 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their community
- 86 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with where they live
- 80 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their health
- 84 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their religious or spiritual life
- 73 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their job
- 70 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with their recreation activities.
- 29 percent are completely or somewhat satisfied with the direction the world is headed with 70 percent reporting they are not very or not at all satisfied.
- 65 percent say they are completely or somewhat satisfied with their financial condition with 34 percent saying they are not very or not at all satisfied.
In order to compare the degree of satisfaction across the 11 areas over time and today between various groups, the Siena pollsters computed scores based on whether respondents said they were completely, somewhat, not very or not at all satisfied.
A score of 100 means every person said they were completely satisfied and a score of zero means every person said that they were not at all satisfied. The total score is the percentage of possible scores across all 11 areas.
“The two lowest scores in both years and in every group are satisfaction with finances and satisfaction with the condition of the world. While we expected to see financial satisfaction up in 2018 relative to 2008 given a more vibrant economy today as compared with 2008, we find that financial satisfaction is slightly lower overall,” Levy said. “Satisfaction with the political and economic condition of the world is dramatically lower than satisfaction with every other aspect of life and varies very little across time and demographics.”
He said young people, between 18-34, are less satisfied with every aspect of life than those 65 and older except when it comes to health and vitality.
More money does seem to help, he said, as those earning more $100,000 were generally more satisfied than those earning less than $50,000 in every category except one — religion and spirituality.
The poll was conducted by making phone calls to 807 New York state residents from June 12 through June 27. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percent.
