U.S. No Longer Ranks Among 20 Happiest Countries

[openrisk]

Countless metrics have been proposed over time to track wellbeing of some type. The recent WISE initiative [1] tries to put some structure around this (using current welfare, future welfare and inclusiveness as key dimensions).

Despite this lack of sharpness and unassailable objectivity, the signal sent by all these metrics is generally real: the focus on aggregate economic performance (the infamous GDP) and organizing society entirely around the maximization of monetarily defined wealth is too simplistic, no longer fit-for-purpose (if it ever was) and potentially a complete cul-de-sac.

The list of "happy" countries is more or less the set where various intangible cultural aspects partially mitigate the growing inadequacy of the mainstream socioeconomic apparatus. But it is not a blueprint that can be easily adopted or improved upon by other countries and cultures.

Yet there are no visible paths to workable alternatives (or complements) to the existing system. The simplicity of mapping everything onto a single monetary dimension has been such a successful monopoly and created incredibly strongly entrenched interests. It has left effectively no room for evolving any other broad-based economic infrastructure or tools that might expand what we optimize for to things that evidently matter.

People are frustrated and compile this or that index or meta-index but the expression "put money where your mouth is" neatly expresses the current impasse. Happy happiness day! [2]

[1] https://www.beyond-gdp.world/wise-database/wise-metrics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Happiness

[maratc]

Whatever metrics anyone comes up with today, cannot be scaled back historically.

If e.g. you put some metric around "do you have a car", and try to use that metric towards "happiness", this implicitly puts all the people in 19th century in the "unhappy by not having a car" category.

The only thing that can be used over time is the self-reported level of happiness. I.e. "on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy do you feel today?". And this is exactly what this study does.

The real issue is that GDP (a concept which is too complicated to be understood by general populace), or any other "economic performance" criterion, have little to no relation to the self-perceived happiness of the population. Objectively poor people can be happy, and objectively rich people can be unhappy.

[tarkin2]

This is a democratic worry: unhappy people are pliable people and are more likely to vote for demagogues, demagogues who are more a wrecking ball than a manager of state.

[deathlight]

Hopefully we get good and hard the democracy that we have long been promised; and good and hard because you only get an outcome that people whose lives have been utterly and entirely unlike your own are the ones making the rules for how you and yours will be to the end of your days. Sounds like a lot of fun right? It sure is interesting how people's opinions change when they realize what kind of people are the ones getting to make the rules for everybody from here on out.

[drewcoo]

> "unhappy people are pliable people and are more likely to vote for demagogues, demagogues who are more a wrecking ball than a manager of state"

That's a stilted and verbose euphemism for "voting against the status quo."

Isn't that expected when people are allowed to vote and when the status quo fails them?

> This is a democratic worry

No, not being allowed to vote for change shows that democracy is absent.

[zo1]

You say that as a bad thing, others see it as a good thing. Like with everything, we eventually revert to a happy and "flowing" medium. People being unhappy means their needs and worries were not being catered.

[test1235]

Same news from CNN:

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/worlds-happiest-countries-202...

1. Finland

2. Denmark

3. Iceland

4. Sweden

5. Israel

6. Netherlands

7. Norway

8. Luxembourg

9. Switzerland

10. Australia

11. New Zealand

12. Costa Rica

13. Kuwait

14. Austria

15. Canada

16. Belgium

17. Ireland

18. Czechia

19. Lithuania

20. United Kingdom

[usr1106]

The methodology of that report causes questions amongst Finnish researchers and observers every year.

* One of the highest suicide rates in Europe

* One of the highest homocide rates in Europe

* High rate of drug related mortality

* Poorly performing economy since the financial crisis 2008 / Nokia mobile phones fell in 2011

* Rapidly growing public and private debt

* A far right government with an xenophobic, anti-EU, "we need a strong leader" party being the second strongest

* Increasing strikes (well that might be too new to be covered by the research)

How does that lead to rank 1?

Simple answer from the mouth of a Finnish teenager: "All that are not happy have committed suicide."

Edit: I don't question that Finland ranks higher than the US. But the number 1 is very questionable.

[Qiu_Zhanxuan]

How does Israel and Kuwait rank so high ? Did they surveyed the arab israelis and Palestinians? What about those slave workers in Kuwait ? In both case that's more than half the total population that lives in horrible conditions.

Makes this whole Ranking suspicious

[taejavu]

Bhutan is the self-proclaimed “Happiest Country in the World”, going so far as to “measure” Gross Domestic Happiness and claim it’s more important to their government than GDP.

Why is Bhutan not on this list? Too small?

[Ekaros]

One that I question is UK at 20... There is so much news about various economic pressures there that it is surprising to find it ranking so high.

[pixelesque]

That's the "Life Evaluation" list, there are other criteria as well if you look at the full report...

Large differences between age groups as well, as the report states:

> Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain are countries where the old are now significantly happier than the young, while Portugal and Greece show the reverse pattern.

[082349872349872]

For those who prefer a full list, more discussion, and the original source: https://worldhappiness.report

[Simon_ORourke]

Israel at number five? Go figure?

[nickd2001]

As a Brit who lived in the US a few years so maybe has a detached perspective.. I saw Americans being happy in a land of opportunity with high personal freedom, opportunity to reinvent yourself, the great outdoors etc, and certainly I enjoyed that too. OTOH, individualism has its dark side. When people believe its all about self-determination and the state shouldn't be helping people, some people fall massively through the cracks e:g someone on low income while they try to look after a disabled family member. Americans are often generous at helping each other, in fact ironically I found those that supported economically right-wing "everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps" ideology, could often be simultaneously generous to others that they perceived to be in need. I think a source of unhappiness in the USA might be loneliness. To be honest, reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little house on the prairie" series, while that sounds idyllic in a way, it also sounds lonely and hard work to me. So, some sources of lower happiness in the USA in terms of lack of community, might be deep-rooted? (some off the top of my head thoughts which others may dispute :). )

[beardyw]

That doesn't account for why things have got worse.

[CalRobert]

Unpaywalled reporting from a more international perspective at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/20/young-people... .

There are several front-page stories about youth happiness on the guardian today.

This struck me:

"""

It was the hush that worried the US’s top doctor as he toured the country’s university campuses last year.

Dr Vivek Murthy went to places including Duke, University of Texas and Arizona State, but so many youngsters were plugged into earphones and gazing into laptops and phones that it was incredibly quiet in the communal areas. Where was the loud chatter Murthy remembered from his college days?

"""

from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/20/vivek-murthy-u...

[NeoTar]

I'm not saying that I disagree, but this strikes me as a "Things are different from my youth and are therefore bad" style comment (on behalf of the article author, not the commentator).

[sva_]

Damn people work on their laptops while at university? That's crazy news

Next he'll go into a library and find that people are silently staring into books

[stuaxo]

Up next: lots of articles about how happiness isn't that important anyway.

[TMWNN]

Until November of this year, at which time Trump's forthcoming inauguration will retroactively be deemed the cause of why the US dipped in the happiness ranking earlier in the year

[Mortiffer]

Direct link https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/WHR+24.pdf

[czam]

Recently learned about the existence of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) https://weall.org/

[joecool1029]

https://archive.is/VRaEO (doesn't have full article)

[test1235]

>https://archive.is/VRaEO

that doesn't work? I only see half a page there.

[flybrand]

The dog that’s not barking is state by state data from the US, or from within parts of other large nations.

[doubloon]

Between the homeless camps, the thousand yard stare retail workers, the perpetually angry boomer ruling class, the isolating physical environments, the destruction of third spaces, the medical bankruptcies, the lack of any kind of sick leave or vacation, the death race daily commutes, i thought this was pretty obvious

[fxtentacle]

You forgot the lack of affordable housing, which is my guess as to why youth happiness fell so sharply in the US and Germany and France.

[emchammer]

Pipe down, let's not get HN cancelled by act of Congress.

[aredox]

Americans may finally start to realize they are not "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"

[082349872349872]

IIUC, largely because of being surpassed by eastern europe.

[flohofwoe]

There's not many Eastern European countries in the list (as in "former Eastern Bloc"), I can only see Czechia and Lithunia towards the bottom of the top 20. I would put Finland into the Northern Europe bucket, and only Lithunia had climbed one spot from 20 in 2023 to 19 in 2024.

[Sparkyte]

space race for happiness?

[louthy]

The list…

World’s 20 Happiest Countries In 2024:

Finland

Denmark

Iceland

Sweden

Israel

Netherlands

Norway

Luxembourg

Switzerland

Australia

New Zealand

Costa Rica

Kuwait

Austria

Canada

Belgium

Ireland

Czechia

Lithuania

United Kingdom

[hathym]

my brain hit a buffer overflow at position 5 and I stopped reading.