"How happy are people in Illinois and how well are they doing? Specifically, how well is Illinois producing a high and growing standard of living for its working households? How well are its working citizens faring generally? How would we measure the answer to this question? How can we help Illinois’ households to become happier? This is the first assessment to focus exclusively on the State of Illinois and the state of its citizens’ well-being, with a single set of measures that indicates the quality of working and living in Illinois. The main purpose of this report is to create a handy, yet meaningful and useful index of 8 composite indicators. This index creates a base year composite score, reflecting not only where the state is apparently deficient, but how the quality of life and work in Illinois could be improved, both short term and long term, by revisiting the index perennially. The index creates a comprehensive grid of frequently available indicators of various aspects of others’ developed attempts to measure happiness and well-being. These estimates and the present attempt use the research-documented factors associated with it – both coincident and antecedent."
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