Americans are not a happy people.

In fact, according to the latest Gallup World Happiness Report, for the first time in the report’s 12-year history, the U.S. was not among the top 20 happiest nations in the world.

I am not surprised.

Despite the rosy picture of America our doddering president and his deceitful toadies are trying to paint, America dropped from 15^th place to 23^rd place in 2013, according to the Gallup poll.

Countries are ranked according to self-assessed life evaluations and answers to the “Cantril Ladder” question. This question asks respondents to think of a ladder with 10 rungs. The best possible life for them would be the 10th rung, and the worst would be no rung. Then, they are to rate their current lives on that scale.

America is not even in the Top 10. Even Israel, which is currently engaged in a bloody war with Hamas terrorists, is ranked 5th.

Top 10 Happiest Countries in the World

What’s going on?

Well, given that Americans are dealing with persistent inflation, lower real wages, record gas, grocery, and energy prices, rising crime in their cities, and a wide-open border that has resulted in some 10 million illegal migrants invading the country, it’s little wonder they are displeased.

The report shows the U.S. decline is at least partly attributable to Americans under age 30 feeling worse about their lives. The U.S. still ranks in the top 10 countries for those 60 and older, with a score of 7.258 out of 10. But for those under 30, it ranks 62^nd, with a score of 6.392. The once vibrant and buoyant outlook of young Americans has dulled, overtaken by concerns over life satisfaction.

“The report finds there’s a dramatic decrease in the self-reported well-being of people aged 30 and below,” says editor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economics and behavioral science professor and the director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University. “The big pressures in life, [such as] having small children, a mortgage to pay, and work, have likely tapered off a bit.”

But what’s so unexpected is the extent to which well-being has fallen among young adults in America.

The rankings are based on responses from a representative sample of about 1,000 respondents in each country, and the report, using the Cantril Ladder question, considers the following six variables in the more than 130 ranked nations:

1. GDP per capita
2. Social Support
3. Healthy life expectancy
4. Freedom
5. Generosity
6. Freedom of corruption

“In North America, youth happiness has dropped below that of older adults,” says Ilana Ron-Levey, managing director at Gallup. “We knew that a relationship existed between age and happiness, but the biggest surprise is that it is more nuanced than we previously thought, and it is changing.”

That’s bad news for Joe Biden, who is trying to woo 18-35 voters in November with promises of college debt forgiveness, among other things.

“We would expect youth to actually start out at a higher level of well-being than middle-aged individuals,” De Neve says. “But they are very pessimistic.”

I am not shocked by that. Unlike past generations, the newest generation sees a bleak future where the American Dream looks more like a nightmare. Homeownership appears impossible to them; rents are almost out of reach, and prices for everything from automobiles to groceries are soaring.

“People are hearing that America is going to hell in a handbasket, and the young especially are feeling more threatened by it,” says John Helliwell, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia and a co-author of the study.

More bad news for Joe Biden.

While the U.S. lost ground, Finland retained its crown as the happiest country in the world for the seventh straight year. But it wasn’t No. 1 for those under 30 or over 60. Lithuania and Denmark, respectively, took those honors.

In places like the U.S. and Canada, for example, rankings for those 60 and older are at least 50 places higher than for those under 30. However, in many countries, particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe, the reverse is true: The young are happier than the old.

I am not a sociologist, but even I can see that Americans, particularly younger Americans, are not happy.

A tottering, stumbling, mumbling president who tends to fall down a lot and who isn’t allowed by his nervous handlers to take impromptu questions from the press or speak without a teleprompter is leading them–and I use the word “leading” judiciously.

Joe Biden is a fragile, indecisive, corrupt man, and Americans know it. So does the rest of the world. That certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.

Americans have always had a “can do” attitude. They were almost always optimistic about their lives and the future.

The “American Dream” was real. Young couples could afford to buy starter homes. Our economy was typically growing and providing countless opportunities. America was respected worldwide for its vigor, creativity, economic might, and diplomatic and political influence.

Today, with “wokeness” supplanting our nation’s political sinew and common sense, America is a nation careening toward self-destruction.

When America’s politicians, business leaders, and educators are no longer able or willing to accept the biological fact that there is only a binary choice when it comes to human gender—male and female, the sensible and prudent multitudes have no reason to feel confident about anything.

Americans are being asked to suspend their belief in established scientific facts and accept bogus truths about gender, climate, the economy, and their quality of life dispersed by fools masquerading as leaders.

They are being told all is well in a nation that is in decline, has lost its way, and is so politically and socially divided that it can scarcely function.

They are appalled that Joe Biden and his toadies have unleashed “lawfare” against his main political rival and are attempting to throw him into prison just as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and tin pot dictators in banana republics do to their political opponents.

National polls show that 78% of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. A majority do not want our representative republic wrenched and twisted into a socialist mess by the Biden administration and its Democrat Party sycophants.

That is not the America nearly all Americans expect or want. Yet, that seems to be what is happening.

Is it any wonder, then, that Americans are not a happy people?

–30–

[The World Happiness Report is published under a partnership among Gallup, Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre.  the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the WHR Editorial Board.]

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