Unhappiness and Pain in Modern America: A Review Essay, and Further Evidence, on Carol Graham’s Happiness for All?

David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald

No 24087, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In Happiness for All?, Carol Graham raises disquieting ideas about today’s United States. The challenge she puts forward is an important one. Here we review the intellectual case and offer additional evidence. We conclude broadly on the author’s side. Strikingly, Americans appear to be in greater pain than citizens of other countries, and most sub-groups of citizens have downwardly trended happiness levels. There is, however, one bright side to an otherwise dark story. The happiness of black Americans has risen strongly since the 1970s. It is now almost equal to that of white Americans.

JEL-codes: I3 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hpe and nep-ltv
Note: EH LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2019. "Unhappiness and Pain in Modern America: A Review Essay, and Further Evidence, on Carol Graham’s for All?," Journal of Economic Literature, vol 57(2), pages 385-402.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24087.pdf (application/pdf)

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24087

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24087

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().