Not only are Americans becoming less happy were experiencing more pain too

[packman]

Source: Washington Post

Americans “are in greater pain than citizens of other countries” and have been growing steadily more miserable for decades, according to a new working paper by David G. Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick.

For their paper, Blanchflower and Oswald investigate claims about happiness made by the Brookings Institution's Carol Graham in her recent book, “Happiness For All?". In the book, Graham draws primarily on Gallup data to argue American happiness is faltering as a rational response to growing inequality.

Among Graham's most striking finding is, as she puts it, “markers of well and ill-being, ranging from life satisfaction to stress, are more unequally shared across the rich and the poor in the U.S. than they are in Latin America, a region long known for high levels of inequality.” Low-income Americans are particularly skeptical that hard work will improve their economic situation



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/not-only-are-americans-becoming-less-happy-were-experiencing-more-pain-too/?utm_term=.631cfcbf17f4

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Two items strikes one reading the article

1. Gallup data to argue American happiness is faltering as a rational response to growing inequality.
and
2. Low-income Americans are particularly skeptical that hard work will improve their economic situation

The end times of the American Dream? Charts and graphs at link

[LongTomH]

1. Decades which just happen to coincide with the years of Reaganomics and trickle-down policies.

Interesting coincidence, eh what?

[Initech]

2. And it can be boiled down to 3 letters: G O P.

Their decades of reckless anti-government and anti-worker policies have brought us here.

[lunatica]

3. I'm retiring in two weeks

And just knowing that has made me acutely aware of how stressful my job in administration of 20 has been. Especially for the last 5 years. There is a flood of brain power and institutional knowledge that's leaving the University. It's gotten progressively worse since they decided to corporatize our jobs. The burden of work has gotten so bad that people are retiring earlier than they first wanted to which just compounds the problem.

I love this university (UC Berkeley) and I always felt my job was a valuable one that helped support good things for the planet and the future. But to stay here would be detrimental to my health. And so many of my fellow staff members feel the same way. Everyone who though they would wait a few more years before retiring are rethinking their plans. It's become very bad for our nerves and our health to work here anymore.