‘Make America grim again’: Americans haven’t been this sad overall since Nixon

Three months into the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 116,000 Americans, people across the United States are reporting lower levels of happiness than at any point since the 1970s—nearly 50 years ago.

According to the Covid Response Tracking Survey, conducted late last month by NORC at the University of Chicago, just 14% of Americans report that they are “very happy.”

The researchers compared their findings to those of the General Social Survey, taken every other year since 1972, and found that at least 29% of respondents to that poll have always reported feeling “very happy” with their lives. Continue reading.