If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

functionmouse

because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries

rootusrootus

When I see a sudden drop in 2020, my first reaction is "COVID." For a lot of people that was a pivotal moment with persistent consequences. My second guess would be politics. I have met few people in the last few years that do not seem unhappy as a direct result of our political battles. Families actually breaking up over it, etc. Now I will go read the article ;-)

Induane

Relentless striving without any kind of real meaning isn't healthy. Even people who aren't deeply Christian in the religious sense are still inherited of much of the values. I.E. people must prove their value via an extraordinary work ethic.

comrade1234

I feel like wealthy americans live like poor Europeans - they live far outside the city in crowded suburbs, no amenities walking distance so they have to drive everywhere, having to commute an hour to their job, eating bad manufactured food... I'm American but moved to Europe years ago. It may be even better being poor here because at least you might live in a village and you'll have healthcare and your government won't be trying to kill you with polluted air and dangerous food standards.

lbrito

Good article with a weird title. Why assume wealth and happiness are correlated?

zepppotemkin

Interesting, have they not tried youtube?

jazz9k

Social media destroyed people's happiness. It not only created echo chambers for people to reaffirm their mental illnesses (instead of getting real help for it), but also a real loneliness epidemic. I'm probably the happiest now than I've been in my entire life. It's all about perspective.

pkilgore

It's getting to the point where I search "K-shaped" and "Cohort" in these kinds of articles before I even read them. I'm not even saying these are why , exactly, but failure to wrestle with the intellectual effort of rejecting that as a hypothesis is a frustrating omission.

detourdog

The wealth of America may not be the money held by the average population but the buying power and choices available to the average population. I just spent 5 months in the richest country in the Caribbean and the purchasing choices are limited in all but the largest cities. The largest cities still don't have selection of consumer products available in most of the USA. I understand that this doesn't buy happiness but it is eye opening. I never really understood this measure of consumerism before but it is clear to me now.

hiAndrewQuinn

I like how the graphs suggest that prior to 2020 a certain "holy trinity" for happiness existed of being married, graduating college, and voting Republican. This passes the sniff test even though I am only 2 for 3, I was not having a great time at 1 and was downright glum at 0.

testplzignore

> What’s more, Peltzman’s analysis finds that some of the largest declines in happiness seem concentrated among well-to-do demographics, like older people, white people, and college graduates. The same demographics that are the most likely to have gone from working in the office to working from home...

slackfan

Our per-capita SSRI consumption is lower than more than a few EU countries'. Also sadness is a natural and ok state of being. Being a gronked out happy zombie is unnatural and should be suspect.

tyleo

I listened to a podcast recently which mentioned a rich person living in Florida for tax reasons but really wanting to live in New York. They had an app that counted down how long they needed to be in Florida day-by-day. They hated Florida. I like to think being rich is FU money to do what you want, “fuck being taxed, I have enough wealth to live in NY anyways.” I feel that the culture pressuring you to hoard wealth even at loss of happiness obviously makes for unhappy people.

etchalon

Healthcare. The answer to this shit is usually healthcare.

quantum_state

This trend will continue as long as tax payers money is wasted in useless and unnecessary wars …

cynicalpeace

One of the clear detriments of a secular culture is you lose the source code that tells you in clear words: pursuit of material wealth is only a small part of a full life And when you only pursue material wealth, well... that is "the root of all evil"

slopinthebag

Very interesting article, and I can't help but compare with Canada. Canada has fallen from 5th in 2015 to 25th in 2025 on that same World Happiness Report, but if you break it down by age demographics, over 60 are still in the top 10, and under 25's are 71st . That is the largest demographic gap of every developed country. During that time, Canada's economy has been propped up by debt, high levels of immigration leading to cheap foreign workers, and the housing market, all of which benefit the older demographics and sacrifice the wellbeing and future of younger generations. I agree strongly with the author that inflation pays a massive role. Canada has seen even worse inflation than the USA, especially with housing and food prices. The youth unemployment rate is 14%. Canada is different from the states it appears, where the rise in unhappiness is mostly coming from the youth whereas in the States it seems to be a more general phenomenon. It's interesting how split Canada is on age demographics. Interestingly enough, the author points to Quebec as an outlier. While they point to the language spoken as a differentiator, I think it's more likely that Quebec is simply shielded from some of the economic factors facing the rest of Canada since they hold massively disproportionate political power over the rest of Canada and receive a ton of extra federal funding from other provinces.

anonu

The earlier NYT article on the topic was interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/opinion/economy-attitudes... It was succinctly put: the top 10% of earners - those making 250k or more - do 50% of the spending. If you're a company with a product or service, are you going to cater to the 90% or the affluent 10%? Clearly the latter - so as a result the bottom 90% of the country just feels like they're "keeping up with the Joneses" all the time. Probably a lot of hand-wavy behavioral economics here and I am sure the answer to "Why are we so sad" is more complex...

amadeuspagel

Life is about habits. The pandemic interrupted many good habits people had--going outside, doing sports, meeting people--and many people haven't restarted these habits, in part due to a collective cold start problem.

eBombzor

I do feel this trend in my life. I have a job which I'm grateful for but nothing feels satisfying anymore, and I feel like it is much harder to connect to people or form deep relationships, especially in this field, unless you already have a clique in your workplace. On top of that, AI is generally a demotivating entity to the majority of people. Despite all the hype of Altman and whonots, I feel like people just don't have a positive view of the future of their careers due to AI. And once you lose hope it's just downhill from there. Also I feel like society still hasn't recovered fully from COVID, so many third places gone, restraunts closed, etc. It's getting there but people are isolating more and more. I'm in my late 20s and I just haven't felt like my social life is even half of what it used to be before COVID.