The latest findings from the World Happiness Report show that the United States has fallen to 24th place overall, which is already embarrassing for the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. But the real story is what happens when you look at Americans under 30. If they were ranked on their own, they would not even make the top 60.
Let that sink in…
The richest country in human history has young people who are more unhappy than people living in countries with far fewer resources, smaller economies, and a fraction of our military spending.
This isn’t a small detail that one should be overlooking, certainly not our ‘leaders.’
That’s millions of people quietly admitting that something doesn’t feel stable anymore. That the future doesn’t feel solid. That no matter how hard they work, they’re just a hamster in a wheel.
And while this is happening, politicians go on television celebrating record highs in the stock market as if that means something to the average 26-year-old.
Who exactly is that supposed to help?
It’s not the 24-year-old working full time while taking classes at night who is still putting groceries on a credit card because rent and utilities wiped out their paycheck in three days.
It’s not the 32-year-old with a “good job” who still needs a roommate because buying a house feels like trying to buy a yacht.
It’s not the 28-year-old staring at $70,000 in student loans refreshing LinkedIn every morning hoping someone will finally respond.
It’s not the 26-year-old who hasn’t been to the doctor in years because even with insurance the deductible might as well be a second rent payment.
You can’t “get in the market” when your entire paycheck disappears into rent, groceries, utilities, gas, insurance, and minimum credit card payments before the month is halfway over. You can’t build wealth when you’re calculating whether you can afford to fix your car or just pray it survives another month. You cannot build wealth when you’re barely staying afloat.
A booming stock market only benefits the people who have extra money to invest. Most people don’t have extra money. They have bills.
We keep hearing that this is the strongest economy ever.
If that were true, it wouldn’t feel like this.
If that were true, people in their twenties and thirties wouldn’t feel like they’re sprinting on a treadmill that never turns off. They wouldn’t be delaying marriage because it feels financially irresponsible. They wouldn’t be postponing kids because daycare costs more than a mortgage. They wouldn’t be looking at starter homes priced like luxury property.
Housing prices climbed. Tuition climbed. Healthcare climbed. Groceries climbed. Everything climbed.
Wanna know what didn’t climb? Wages.
They haven’t even kept up with the price of inflation.
So when someone says, “The market is doing great,” they’re entirely disconnected from reality of the average American. The market doing well is not the same thing as people doing well. Watching a number tick upward on CNBC does not help when your checking account hits zero on the 21st of the month.
For a lot of Americans in their twenties and thirties, even the ones who did everything “right”, life feels impossible. One medical bill, one car repair, one missed paycheck can financially wreck them.
Nearly half of Americans do not have access to even $1,000 to cover an emergency expense.
67% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
That kind of financial pressure does something to you.
It changes how you think.
It keeps you in survival mode.
It makes you hesitate before making plans.
It makes retirement sound like a joke.
It makes homeownership feel like something that happens to other people.
There is no realistic pathway for middle and lower class Americans to build real wealth the way previous generations did.
So no, it’s not shocking that antidepressant use is up. It’s not shocking that addiction rates are climbing. It’s not shocking that so many people say they feel burned out before they even hit 35.
What’s truly shocking, is young Americans are being told by pundits like Ben Shapiro that the problem is their attitude.
That young people are entitled.
That they just don’t work hard enough.
That they spend too much on coffee and just need to “learn to invest.”
But you can’t budget your way out of a systemic problem. You can’t side-hustle your way out of housing prices that doubled while wages haven’t moved. You can’t grind your way into stability when the baseline cost of existing keeps rising faster than your income.
When I see that Americans under 30 wouldn’t even rank in the top 60 globally for happiness, it doesn’t surprise me. It confirms what many of us already feel every day: uncertainty about the future and the sense that the ladder to a stable and successful life was pulled up before we ever had the chance to climb it.
If the wealthiest nation in history can’t offer its young people a realistic path to success, then record stock prices are nothing to celebrate. Leaders should not be congratulating themselves while an entire generation quietly loses faith that things will ever get better.
They should be deeply ashamed of how little hope they’ve left for the next generation.
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