Not only are Americans becoming less happy — we’re experiencing more pain too

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.