Me too! Because so much of it was wickedly hilarious. Then again maybe I just need to get hip. Maybe it is actually possible to ‘flood the zone’ to achieve a stellar happiness score and kick ass at suicide as well - after all, we’re living in Century 21!
Excellent piece! I have always questioned the premise behind such assessments. First of all, the concept itself of "happiness" is culturally-constructed; then, the answers you get are, obviously, dependent on the many ways you can ask the question. And thank you for all the info about Scandinavian countries. On the other hand, it would be interesting to do a study about the American states that appear happier: N and S Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Hawaii--very atypical states. I would say that, aside from Hawaii and Kansas, what they have in common is that they are scarcely populated. Could the secret to happiness be living in areas without too much human contact, ha, ha?
More likely living in places that have high civic unity – all of these states are also top of the rankings among US states for voting rate and membership participation in civic orgs such as Lions Club or Kiwanis!
I think a study would prove space can help strengthen human contact. Those states I’d imagine have very strong family and friend bonds. People are tied into their community, family, church, and of course the university athletic teams. Cornhuskers, Jayhawks, Wildcats, and Bison. Before writing off the latter I’d recommend attending a football or basketball game at one of those schools.
Second, to people saying all those states are boring. If kids who have more free and creative play vs structured play end up more resilient why wouldn't the same be true for adults creating activities surrounded by cornfields.
Basing happiness on smiling is suspect. North American culture uses that as a gauge whereas in much of Europe and around the world smiling is not culturally appropriate. It isn’t a reflection of happiness, well-being or contentment considered in that context.
When reading of thjs survey in the past, I’ve often wondered if the word “happy” which has so many shades of meaning depending on context (from “euphoric” all the way to “satisfied”) has an exact synonym between any two languages
Yascha this i believe is spot on. See also a supporting blog i wrote on Jon Haidt's substack after Babel saying much the same and offering even more insights on why we shouldn't believe the Gallup World poll used for the WHR.
Glad you looked into it. Was obvious this was bullshit and the only interesting information about that report was how much of a big deal people made of it - a good indicator of how concerned they are of their happiness, or lack thereof.
I work for a prison nonprofit. At this point I assume that these reports/studies/surveys are shams. They all make wild assumptions, mistake correlation and causation, and use dubious data and poorly designed experiments and questionnaires.
Our elite bureaucracy, ladies and gentlemen.
If you care about the world of prison nonprofit work, you can read this:
I read a travel memoir about Scandanavia (the name escapes me) and the author noted the same contradiction - great place but no way this is happiest place in the world. He concluded that is such a collectivist and consensus based culture that when asked a question like this one, you *have* to answer very high. What, are you special? You need more than others? A low answer would be ungrateful.
I thought this tracked because Japan scored so low - great place, a lot of pressure but hardly hell. It’s the same logic but different conclusion - what, are you special? You don’t have work to do? You don’t see any problems to solve? It’s selfish to answer high.
As a person living in the Nordics, I don't get this POV at all. Saying that Finland or Sweden or Norway are 'collectivist' (e.g. implying they do not have a strong capitalist and individualistic nature) is just wrong headed. In many ways, they are less socially conformist than the US, although it's probably safer to say 'differently conformist'. Don't mistake 1) desire for a safety net for people which provides a basic healthy environment for kids to become self sufficient adults 2) Lack of adulation of elites, and 3) Respect for public institutions as 'collectivist'. The gini index for N. Europe (and all of Europe), like the US, shows substantial income inequality, reflecting the ability to achieve individual economic success.
Cool. I don't think Americans understand Scandinavia .. because they learn about it through either the left or right wing press. And both get it wrong.
I suspect that I’d be really happy in Scandinavia for six months of bountiful sunshine, and miserable during the other six months. I grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to California for the weather (dry summers and warming winters) but the dark months of the year still leave me despairing for lack of daylight hours. But I am sure I’m more susceptible to this affecting my mood than other people.
That said, I do find it interesting that Scandinavia has some of the higher suicide rates in Europe. Of course there could be cultural reasons, but if we knew the suicide rate during the winter vs. the summer, it might shed some… light on how much daylight exposure makes a difference.
It's more that Baltic and Eastern European countries have higher rates. The suicide rate dropped significantly in Finland from 1990s, as the country was the first in the world to start a national suicide prevention programme in 1986. Maybe collectivist efforts work sometimes :) ?
Yes, most would be surprised if they looked at the extent of regulation in the USA vs. Scandinavian countries. A simple expectation of more regulation in every area in the latter is not correct.
I think it does make sense that the average American is not all that happy. As I can imagine that happiness on average in a country is in part due to how rich individual people are. And the USA does not fall well on that front. A few a very rich in the USA which skews the idea of the country. But gdp is a bad marker of how rich the average person is. As that number is heavily skewed by a few extreme outliers. If 10 are extremely rich and 190 are poor or poor adjecent the gdp would still be very high but you can't say that the average person in that group is rich or financially well off. And whilst happiness is not caused by being rich. Having enough to not be worried about finances is very important for happiness. So I don't think skepticism for the happiness measure because the USA scores poor is not a good reason alone. I would not take such measures all that serious to begin with, as most happiness research is not all that good to begin with. Also the Netherlands scores high and I live there, so I have reason enough to not take the measure seriously.
whilst? Have you been to the USA? I've lived in Finland, Washington D.C., Portland Oregon and I now live in rural Alabama. Alabamians are MUCH happier than anyone in those other places .. almost annoyingly so.
Once you get above a relatively low threshold of wealth to provide basic living needs, being rich does not add to happiness. Many rich people experience high levels of stress if they are working for that high income or conversely if they inherited wealth, they may suffer from aimlessness and lack of purpose. Others chase material pleasures, but are not happy due to poor family or social dynamics. Look at the happiest US states in the article. North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas are not bastions of wealth, on the contrary those state are largely populated by rural blue-collar people.
How in the world is this your takeaway? By all metrics of the report, most Americans are pretty stinking happy (9 of the top 10 happiest are US states).
That means absolutely nothing for the people themselves. You have to look at how well individuals can life in the economic context of the country they live in. Thus earning 2000 per month in the context of excessive costs of life means that they still have trouble living. Comparing countries is just hiding the context for each country and is misleading to say the least. 2000 dollars in the US is not equal to 2000 dollars in Canada, nor is it equal to 2000 euros in Germany, or even if you would convert to the local currency it would still not be a meaningful comparison. You have to take inflation, and the like for each country into consideration. And the US you'd even have to split per state. As the states don't even compare well to each other.
Did you not read the part about the rather small difference in the Gigi coefficient -- measure of financial differences -- between the USA and European countries? The average American is better off than the average European. The author showed how that is true by several obvious measures.
Sorry, but I would never describe Scandinavian societies as extremely reserved and socially disjointed. It’s a bit difficult to get in for an outsider, but otherwise there is great openness and trust between the people. The same is about social connections. On average every Dane is a member of 7 different social organisations, and the number of clubs, unions, interest groups etc is probably the highest in the world per capita. Sure, not everything is pure joy, and the weather is terrible (from my point of view), but the way society works and the life is organised is so much better than in most of other countries.
Metric? We don’t even have a very good definition of “happiness,” which makes it obvious that this is not a serious thing. But I wouldn’t blame major news outlets for featuring these stories, this seems among the less harmful revenue raising gimmicks they have. If they published nothing but scientifically validated “truth” they’d be broke in no time, since most people no longer pay for news.
I am all for critiquing these studies - clearly they leave a lot to be desired. But I do think they are up to something potentially worthwhile. In the absence of any other metric of societal well-being, GDP becomes that metric by default, and there are myriad problems with that too.
Critizing life evaluation indicators for producing a different ranking of countries than emotion-based indicators is like critizing GDP per capita for producing a different ranking of countries than a ranking of wealth. They measure two different things, and thus produce two different rankings.
Behind your rhetoric of “sham” and “elite misinformation” I found in essence three actual arguments against Cantril Ladder that is used by World Happiness Report:
1) “People tend to give very different answers to questions about what makes them satisfied with their life and to questions about whether they are feeling good in the moment.”
2) The ladder with a “top” and “bottom” primes people to think about social hierarchies.
3) “Self-reported life satisfaction don’t seem to correlate particularly well with other kinds of things we clearly care about when we talk about happiness.
Let’s break these three arguments apart:
1) That life evaluation indicators and positive emotion indicators provide different results and rankings has been common knowledge for decades. For example, OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being recommended measuring them separately already 2013 and Daniel Kahneman, who initially was critical of evaluative measures, later came to agree that instead of thinking of one or the other as ‘true’ measure of happiness, we need to measure both of them. Anyone paying attention to the field knows that for a more informed understanding of the subjective state of citizens, life evaluation indicators should be complemented with other indicators. But this does not make life evaluation indicators any less valid, just as the existence of wealth metrics does not make GDP any less valid.
2) There are certain known biases in subjective well-being indicators such as the one that you mention. Furthermore, different people use the scale in a bit different ways, for example Japanese avoid extreme values while Latin Americans are more prone to use them. These introduce a degree of bias to the estimates but nothing so serious as to make the measure not useful.
Similarly, GDP has many known weaknesses and biases, such as sensitivity to what base year is used to weight commodity prices, making it much less objective measure that people think it is. Yet, GDP is still widely used as an economic indicator. Same with subjective well-being measures. It is good to be aware of the biases but that does not mean the metrics would not provide useful information.
3) Your claim that life satisfaction does not correlate particularly well with other kind of things we care about is simply untrue and reveals that you have not read much of the literature. Life satisfaction is predicted by factors such as unemployment, divorce, sickness, and salary as one would expect, and life satisfaction itself predicts things like health, longevity, and voting behavior as one would expect. There are literally thousands of studies on the topic, in general showing that life satisfaction correlates with things one would expect it to correlate with.
Furthermore, you claim that we have “precious little idea about what government policies could actually boost this outcome.” Again, this mainly shows that you did not bother to read the literature before making your bold claims. Factors such as gender equality, lack of corruption, multi-party political system, extensive welfare benefits, trust in institutions, and freedom from oppression, among others, have all been shown to predict higher levels of national life evaluation. There is nowadays a vast literature demonstrating what national-level factors predict life evaluation, and what such life evaluation metrics themselves predict. I recommend reading a bit more of that literature before making conclusions about it.
I really liked your ‘The People vs. Democracy’ -book and have been recommending it to many as relevant reading in the current political situation. Given your interest in factors supporting/undermining democracy, I would recommend you to examine recent work about how subjective well-being indicators predict people’s voting behavior.
For example, George Ward with his colleagues showed that in 2016 US presidential elections, subjective well-being indicators - especially Cantril Ladder now and expected Cantril Ladder in five years - measured on a county level predicted voting for Trump better than any county-level economic indicator. In other words, the subjective indicators you critize provide essential information not provided by other indicators, if we want to understand whether people will vote for populist candidates.
Besides that study, there are several others demonstrating how life evaluation predicts voting behavior in various countries across the world. Happy to provide more links, here for example is our examination of what factors explain why the Nordic countries tend to perform so well on life evaluation indicators:
Perhaps reading that research will help you to see that, instead of being “elite misinformation”, subjective well-being indicators provide information about people’s life situation not captured by any objective indicator. If US politicians and media would have paid more attention to subjective well-being indicators instead of economic indicators, the country could be on a quite different trajectory than where it is right now.
IIRC scores for the US (and several other countries) actually increased during the pandemic. At the time it made sense to me because I started working from home full time. It turns out WFH is pretty awesome.
Reading this made me so happy!
LOL! Your response made me so happy!
Schadenfreude?
Me too! Because so much of it was wickedly hilarious. Then again maybe I just need to get hip. Maybe it is actually possible to ‘flood the zone’ to achieve a stellar happiness score and kick ass at suicide as well - after all, we’re living in Century 21!
Excellent piece! I have always questioned the premise behind such assessments. First of all, the concept itself of "happiness" is culturally-constructed; then, the answers you get are, obviously, dependent on the many ways you can ask the question. And thank you for all the info about Scandinavian countries. On the other hand, it would be interesting to do a study about the American states that appear happier: N and S Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Hawaii--very atypical states. I would say that, aside from Hawaii and Kansas, what they have in common is that they are scarcely populated. Could the secret to happiness be living in areas without too much human contact, ha, ha?
🤣
More likely living in places that have high civic unity – all of these states are also top of the rankings among US states for voting rate and membership participation in civic orgs such as Lions Club or Kiwanis!
Sartre 1
UN 0
I think a study would prove space can help strengthen human contact. Those states I’d imagine have very strong family and friend bonds. People are tied into their community, family, church, and of course the university athletic teams. Cornhuskers, Jayhawks, Wildcats, and Bison. Before writing off the latter I’d recommend attending a football or basketball game at one of those schools.
Second, to people saying all those states are boring. If kids who have more free and creative play vs structured play end up more resilient why wouldn't the same be true for adults creating activities surrounded by cornfields.
Yeah that makes me question the methodology re: smaller states. I've been to North Dakota . .most boring place on Earth.
Basing happiness on smiling is suspect. North American culture uses that as a gauge whereas in much of Europe and around the world smiling is not culturally appropriate. It isn’t a reflection of happiness, well-being or contentment considered in that context.
This is a valid point; cultures express happiness very differently.
That said, I am sure G. K. Chesterton would denounce as a monstrosity any culture which told people that smiling was "not appropriate."
When reading of thjs survey in the past, I’ve often wondered if the word “happy” which has so many shades of meaning depending on context (from “euphoric” all the way to “satisfied”) has an exact synonym between any two languages
Yascha this i believe is spot on. See also a supporting blog i wrote on Jon Haidt's substack after Babel saying much the same and offering even more insights on why we shouldn't believe the Gallup World poll used for the WHR.
Is the Gallup World Poll reliable? Answer = no
Then the gallup folks responded with nonsense....
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/gallup-world-poll
Danny Blanchflower
Thanks, Danny—so happy to hear I conveyed your excellent research accurately.
Thanks for this — where did the gallup folks respond with nonsense?
Glad you looked into it. Was obvious this was bullshit and the only interesting information about that report was how much of a big deal people made of it - a good indicator of how concerned they are of their happiness, or lack thereof.
I work for a prison nonprofit. At this point I assume that these reports/studies/surveys are shams. They all make wild assumptions, mistake correlation and causation, and use dubious data and poorly designed experiments and questionnaires.
Our elite bureaucracy, ladies and gentlemen.
If you care about the world of prison nonprofit work, you can read this:
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/reading-prison-mail
I read a travel memoir about Scandanavia (the name escapes me) and the author noted the same contradiction - great place but no way this is happiest place in the world. He concluded that is such a collectivist and consensus based culture that when asked a question like this one, you *have* to answer very high. What, are you special? You need more than others? A low answer would be ungrateful.
I thought this tracked because Japan scored so low - great place, a lot of pressure but hardly hell. It’s the same logic but different conclusion - what, are you special? You don’t have work to do? You don’t see any problems to solve? It’s selfish to answer high.
As a person living in the Nordics, I don't get this POV at all. Saying that Finland or Sweden or Norway are 'collectivist' (e.g. implying they do not have a strong capitalist and individualistic nature) is just wrong headed. In many ways, they are less socially conformist than the US, although it's probably safer to say 'differently conformist'. Don't mistake 1) desire for a safety net for people which provides a basic healthy environment for kids to become self sufficient adults 2) Lack of adulation of elites, and 3) Respect for public institutions as 'collectivist'. The gini index for N. Europe (and all of Europe), like the US, shows substantial income inequality, reflecting the ability to achieve individual economic success.
I'll totally concede the word collectivist. That's something of a memory from his argument, there's nothing precise in my usage.
Cool. I don't think Americans understand Scandinavia .. because they learn about it through either the left or right wing press. And both get it wrong.
I suspect that I’d be really happy in Scandinavia for six months of bountiful sunshine, and miserable during the other six months. I grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to California for the weather (dry summers and warming winters) but the dark months of the year still leave me despairing for lack of daylight hours. But I am sure I’m more susceptible to this affecting my mood than other people.
That said, I do find it interesting that Scandinavia has some of the higher suicide rates in Europe. Of course there could be cultural reasons, but if we knew the suicide rate during the winter vs. the summer, it might shed some… light on how much daylight exposure makes a difference.
It's more that Baltic and Eastern European countries have higher rates. The suicide rate dropped significantly in Finland from 1990s, as the country was the first in the world to start a national suicide prevention programme in 1986. Maybe collectivist efforts work sometimes :) ?
The suicide national ratings are of course not very reliable as there is still a lot of stigma and shame around it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20global%20rate,at%205.9%20per%20100%2C000%20population.
Yes, most would be surprised if they looked at the extent of regulation in the USA vs. Scandinavian countries. A simple expectation of more regulation in every area in the latter is not correct.
I do not understand Scandanvia. I sorta remember a book a read about it once lol.
Very informative, Yascha. I've never questioned the index before, but you make the case against relying on it for anything useful.
I think it does make sense that the average American is not all that happy. As I can imagine that happiness on average in a country is in part due to how rich individual people are. And the USA does not fall well on that front. A few a very rich in the USA which skews the idea of the country. But gdp is a bad marker of how rich the average person is. As that number is heavily skewed by a few extreme outliers. If 10 are extremely rich and 190 are poor or poor adjecent the gdp would still be very high but you can't say that the average person in that group is rich or financially well off. And whilst happiness is not caused by being rich. Having enough to not be worried about finances is very important for happiness. So I don't think skepticism for the happiness measure because the USA scores poor is not a good reason alone. I would not take such measures all that serious to begin with, as most happiness research is not all that good to begin with. Also the Netherlands scores high and I live there, so I have reason enough to not take the measure seriously.
whilst? Have you been to the USA? I've lived in Finland, Washington D.C., Portland Oregon and I now live in rural Alabama. Alabamians are MUCH happier than anyone in those other places .. almost annoyingly so.
Once you get above a relatively low threshold of wealth to provide basic living needs, being rich does not add to happiness. Many rich people experience high levels of stress if they are working for that high income or conversely if they inherited wealth, they may suffer from aimlessness and lack of purpose. Others chase material pleasures, but are not happy due to poor family or social dynamics. Look at the happiest US states in the article. North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas are not bastions of wealth, on the contrary those state are largely populated by rural blue-collar people.
How in the world is this your takeaway? By all metrics of the report, most Americans are pretty stinking happy (9 of the top 10 happiest are US states).
The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world adjusted for cost of living:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=table
Median income is not affected much by a few rich outliers.
There is a lot of misinformation about the US online. I always recommend fact-checking whenever someone claims that "America sucks".
The poorest person in the USA is in the top ten per cent globally. Think about that.
That means absolutely nothing for the people themselves. You have to look at how well individuals can life in the economic context of the country they live in. Thus earning 2000 per month in the context of excessive costs of life means that they still have trouble living. Comparing countries is just hiding the context for each country and is misleading to say the least. 2000 dollars in the US is not equal to 2000 dollars in Canada, nor is it equal to 2000 euros in Germany, or even if you would convert to the local currency it would still not be a meaningful comparison. You have to take inflation, and the like for each country into consideration. And the US you'd even have to split per state. As the states don't even compare well to each other.
"Top Ten Per Cent Globally" isn't that easy to explain away.
It is when the subject is personal wealth. Not GDP. Or international economic competition.
You said it yourself. Top Ten Per Cent Globally, and that includes Canadians and Germans.
Inflation is taken account of in these comparisons. Purchasing-power parity.
Did you not read the part about the rather small difference in the Gigi coefficient -- measure of financial differences -- between the USA and European countries? The average American is better off than the average European. The author showed how that is true by several obvious measures.
Sorry, but I would never describe Scandinavian societies as extremely reserved and socially disjointed. It’s a bit difficult to get in for an outsider, but otherwise there is great openness and trust between the people. The same is about social connections. On average every Dane is a member of 7 different social organisations, and the number of clubs, unions, interest groups etc is probably the highest in the world per capita. Sure, not everything is pure joy, and the weather is terrible (from my point of view), but the way society works and the life is organised is so much better than in most of other countries.
Metric? We don’t even have a very good definition of “happiness,” which makes it obvious that this is not a serious thing. But I wouldn’t blame major news outlets for featuring these stories, this seems among the less harmful revenue raising gimmicks they have. If they published nothing but scientifically validated “truth” they’d be broke in no time, since most people no longer pay for news.
Fair enough! 🤣
I am all for critiquing these studies - clearly they leave a lot to be desired. But I do think they are up to something potentially worthwhile. In the absence of any other metric of societal well-being, GDP becomes that metric by default, and there are myriad problems with that too.
I wonder if these researchers have watched any Aki Kaurismaki films.
https://youtu.be/HmbCJmo1RGk?si=KxHpoR3Y9TNbixns
Critizing life evaluation indicators for producing a different ranking of countries than emotion-based indicators is like critizing GDP per capita for producing a different ranking of countries than a ranking of wealth. They measure two different things, and thus produce two different rankings.
Behind your rhetoric of “sham” and “elite misinformation” I found in essence three actual arguments against Cantril Ladder that is used by World Happiness Report:
1) “People tend to give very different answers to questions about what makes them satisfied with their life and to questions about whether they are feeling good in the moment.”
2) The ladder with a “top” and “bottom” primes people to think about social hierarchies.
3) “Self-reported life satisfaction don’t seem to correlate particularly well with other kinds of things we clearly care about when we talk about happiness.
Let’s break these three arguments apart:
1) That life evaluation indicators and positive emotion indicators provide different results and rankings has been common knowledge for decades. For example, OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being recommended measuring them separately already 2013 and Daniel Kahneman, who initially was critical of evaluative measures, later came to agree that instead of thinking of one or the other as ‘true’ measure of happiness, we need to measure both of them. Anyone paying attention to the field knows that for a more informed understanding of the subjective state of citizens, life evaluation indicators should be complemented with other indicators. But this does not make life evaluation indicators any less valid, just as the existence of wealth metrics does not make GDP any less valid.
2) There are certain known biases in subjective well-being indicators such as the one that you mention. Furthermore, different people use the scale in a bit different ways, for example Japanese avoid extreme values while Latin Americans are more prone to use them. These introduce a degree of bias to the estimates but nothing so serious as to make the measure not useful.
Similarly, GDP has many known weaknesses and biases, such as sensitivity to what base year is used to weight commodity prices, making it much less objective measure that people think it is. Yet, GDP is still widely used as an economic indicator. Same with subjective well-being measures. It is good to be aware of the biases but that does not mean the metrics would not provide useful information.
3) Your claim that life satisfaction does not correlate particularly well with other kind of things we care about is simply untrue and reveals that you have not read much of the literature. Life satisfaction is predicted by factors such as unemployment, divorce, sickness, and salary as one would expect, and life satisfaction itself predicts things like health, longevity, and voting behavior as one would expect. There are literally thousands of studies on the topic, in general showing that life satisfaction correlates with things one would expect it to correlate with.
Furthermore, you claim that we have “precious little idea about what government policies could actually boost this outcome.” Again, this mainly shows that you did not bother to read the literature before making your bold claims. Factors such as gender equality, lack of corruption, multi-party political system, extensive welfare benefits, trust in institutions, and freedom from oppression, among others, have all been shown to predict higher levels of national life evaluation. There is nowadays a vast literature demonstrating what national-level factors predict life evaluation, and what such life evaluation metrics themselves predict. I recommend reading a bit more of that literature before making conclusions about it.
I really liked your ‘The People vs. Democracy’ -book and have been recommending it to many as relevant reading in the current political situation. Given your interest in factors supporting/undermining democracy, I would recommend you to examine recent work about how subjective well-being indicators predict people’s voting behavior.
For example, George Ward with his colleagues showed that in 2016 US presidential elections, subjective well-being indicators - especially Cantril Ladder now and expected Cantril Ladder in five years - measured on a county level predicted voting for Trump better than any county-level economic indicator. In other words, the subjective indicators you critize provide essential information not provided by other indicators, if we want to understand whether people will vote for populist candidates.
Here’s a link to that study by Ward:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-53949-001
Besides that study, there are several others demonstrating how life evaluation predicts voting behavior in various countries across the world. Happy to provide more links, here for example is our examination of what factors explain why the Nordic countries tend to perform so well on life evaluation indicators:
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/the-nordic-exceptionalism-what-explains-why-the-nordic-countries-are-constantly-among-the-happiest-in-the-world/
Perhaps reading that research will help you to see that, instead of being “elite misinformation”, subjective well-being indicators provide information about people’s life situation not captured by any objective indicator. If US politicians and media would have paid more attention to subjective well-being indicators instead of economic indicators, the country could be on a quite different trajectory than where it is right now.
IIRC scores for the US (and several other countries) actually increased during the pandemic. At the time it made sense to me because I started working from home full time. It turns out WFH is pretty awesome.