U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Friday discussed the decline of happiness in the United States and what can be done following the release of the 2024 World Happiness Report (WHP).
The report is based on an annual survey conducted in over 150 countries designed to measure the rate of happiness of people globally.
The report, provided by Gallup, a global analytics and advisory firm, surveyed over 100,000 people who were all asked the same questions, and then compared the responses by age, location, generation, gender, and more to visualize the trends and the current state of happiness across the globe.
For example, the U.S. ranked 11th in the 2012 report. This year it ranked 23rd.
Murphy spoke on the Senate floor regarding what he thinks can be done about the steep decrease in the happiness of Americans.
“Over the last 10 years the rate of happiness, of contentment, of fulfillment, self-reported by Americans, is dropping,” Murphy said. “We come to find that despite unemployment going down, despite inflation going down, despite GDP going up, Americans are more unhappy than any time before.”
According to Murphy, there are things that lawmakers and government officials can do to increase the happiness of their citizens, and he believes they have an obligation to do so.
Murphy mentioned two routes to happiness that he believes aren’t discussed enough in government positions: connection and a sense of purpose.
“We spend nearly half as much time today with other human beings in personal connections than we just did 30 years ago. That is a catastrophic decline in socialization,” Murphy said.
According to Murphy, the lack of connection is due to many reasons “but many of them are connected to public policy choices that we have made.” The choices included the lack of technology regulation, insufficient wages, and the undermining of so many places where people find connection, like downtowns.
Murphy also spoke on the findings of the WHP at the event, “The State of Happiness in 2024,” hosted by Semafor, which is a new news platform.
In a conversation with Semafor founder Steve Clemons, Murphy explained how Americans are spending a lot less time with other people: “20 years ago, the number of Americans who reported having three or fewer friends was 25%, today that number is 50% … 20 years ago, the number of Americans who said they had zero friends was 3%. Today, that number is 12%.”
According to Murphy, alongside a lack of connection between Americans is a feeling of powerlessness, “in part because they don’t feel like democracy is working … But some of it also is that these companies have become so big and so unaccountable, and so opaque, that people feel a sense of consumer powerlessness.”
Citing the Declaration of Independence and the right to pursue happiness, “Our job charged to us by our founders is to set up rules of the economy, rules of society, and rules of culture that give people the best shot at achieving happiness,” Murphy said on the Senate floor.
Murphy said he is hopeful that policy makers in both major parties will collaborate in their pursuit of creating American happiness: “I do think that there is an ability for both parties to come together on some of the beginning elements of doing better when it comes to an issue like social connection.”
Murphy also said he is encouraged by the bipartisan collaboration thus far on the regulation of social media, and that it sends a signal to the country: “We hear you when it comes to this crisis of meaning and purpose and connection, and that we are willing to break through barriers to do something about it.”
