Two surveys out this week - one by the think-tank MassINC, the other from the state's Department of Public Health - suggest that the late comic Sam Kinison may have been right after all.

In talking about the starving citizens of Ethiopia, Kinison had offered up a straightforward solution. ``Move, you idiots!'' he would scream (I'm quoting from memory here - and I'm expurgating a number of obscenities). ``Move! Just get out of there!'' It's something many of the state's residents might want to consider.

According to the DPH, for example, if you live in Chelsea, Worcester or Fall River, you're early for the grave. On the other hand, the residents of Winchester and Newton live long and healthy lives.

So, move.

Meanwhile, MassINC's poll, conducted in January and February, discovered that those living in western Massachusetts are in tough shape. The vast majority of those in other parts of the state are pleased with their lives. But in the west, almost 40 percent rate their quality of life as fair or poor.

Move!

In fact, it appears many people agree with that prescription. According to MassINC, fully one-quarter of those in Massachusetts say they want leave.

Well, nothing's stopping you.

Even better, if that quarter of the population left, it would significantly reduce two of the biggest quality-of-life problems the MassINC survey identified: high housing prices and traffic.

With fewer people needing a place to live, housing costs would drop dramatically.

And with fewer drivers out on the roads, rush hour delays would be just a memory.

Still, pull the DPH and MassINC numbers apart a bit and, as attractive as a ``love it or leave it'' approach might seem, the truth is somewhat different. It turns out that Lennon and McCartney (or, as Paul would now have it, McCartney and Lennon) were wrong. Money can buy you love - and happiness and health.

The healthiest and unhealthiest communities in the DPH's list all correlate tightly to wealth. People with good incomes are healthy; people in poverty are not. The reasons have lots to do with lifestyle. Richer people eat better, smoke less, exercise more and drink more moderately.

So if you want a long life? Make a few bucks - or at least, act as if you had.

The MassINC numbers, released in a report called ``The Pursuit of Happiness,'' drive the point home. The good news for the state is that most people (71 percent) rate the quality of life here as excellent or good. And those who don't? It all comes down to money.

For example, people who have the best paying jobs turn out to have much greater job satisfaction. Stressed-out people blame money for their worries. People with too much debt and unpaid bills are also those who report the lowest quality of life.

The unhappy residents of western Massachusetts? The economic boom of the 1990s largely occurred in the Boston metro area; the west felt little of it. It's not that people don't like living in places like Springfield; it's just that it's hard to make a living there - the lack of good paying jobs is the region's No. 1 concern.

Indeed, money issues top the concerns of every region in the state.

In greater Boston, it's the cost of housing. In southeastern Massachusetts, it's the cost of higher education. In the central part of the state, it's high taxes.

In some respects, this focus on money may seem trivial and obvious. Of course people want money, you might think. Who doesn't know that?

Well, lots of people - including, it often seems, most of the state's political leaders.

MassINC has dedicated itself to a notion that (for Massachusetts, at least) is almost radical: The goal of public policy should be to try to create as big a middle class as possible. If people have decent jobs, homes and communities, then, in the think-tank's words, they ``can live the American dream.''

That's why education matters so much to the people MassINC surveyed - it's a direct route to becoming middle class. That's why so many people object to the state's high tax burden - it takes money out of their pockets (and, interestingly, it is people with lower incomes who object most to high taxes; the rich, contrary to stereotype, are far less bothered). That's why - with one big exception - it is economic matters that drive people out of the state.

The exception? The weather. A quarter of those who want to leave can't stand it.

Both MassINC and the DPH have done a valuable service by underscoring the central role of jobs and a strong economy to the quality of our lives.

But as we suffer through a winter that never seems to end, it's important to remember: There still are some things money just can't buy.

Talk back to Tom Keane at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.