The eCrozier

The Beatles sang “Money Can’t Buy Me Love,” but apparently too many of us in the U.S. still think it should be able to do that. Well, maybe that’s going too far. But we do seem to believe that if money can’t buy us love, then at least it ought to be able to buy us above average happiness. Trouble is the data doesn’t reflect that correlation. It appears we Americans are becoming increasingly unhappy even while incomes rise. In fact, one’s personal level of wealth is a really poor indicator of happiness and that’s been true from a generation of data.

According to the World Happiness Report, an annual report produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a U.N. initiative, the U.S. has dropped in its ranking once again, now slotting in at Number 19 overall out of 156 countries. This year the top three countries were again all Scandinavian (Finland, Denmark and Norway) with the bottom three were Afghanistan, Central African Republic and South Sudan. And the World Happiness Report isn’t the only source that shows our happiness decline. The annual General Social Survey, a completely separate report conducted only in the U.S., also reveals similar results.

“By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever,” reports Jean Twenge, a co-author of the World Happiness Report. “The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades.” So, what’s going on? The report indicated we should be particular concerned about younger people. “Happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012. Thus, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s.” Clearly, low crime, low unemployment, and higher incomes hasn’t produced increased happiness. That means there are more important drivers for why people in the U.S. seem to have a growing level of unhappiness.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a co-author of the report, contends that the report may give us solid clues as to the problem. He says the U.S. is “a mass-addiction society.” He points out the growing opioid crisis, the ongoing trend toward chronic obesity among so many (which often is addictive behavior), and the increasing frequency of depression among young people, particularly ones who spend an inordinate time on electronic devices (also addictive). Sachs adds: “We keep chasing economic growth as the holy grail, but it’s not bringing well-being for our country. We should … stop our addiction to GDP growth as our sole or primary indicator of how we’re doing.”

Amen. GDP can’t buy us love, nor can the pharmaceutical numbing of pain (however needed). And neither can social media or another slice of cheesecake. And yet, we seem to chase all those options as if they could or should. The Gospel is still the Gospel and it’s as true today as it was 2000 years ago. We’ll not find happiness apart from it. When we learn to trust in Jesus’s work of redemption, we will discover where to locate true joy.

+Scott