7 ms·

New High of 90% of Americans Satisfied with Personal Life

33 points by datashow 7y ago

metalliqaz 7y ago
Another signal that we will have 4 more years of Trump.
acephal 7y ago
"Tepid satisfaction"?
93po 7y ago
I'm satisfied but it's only because I make more than twice the median household income by myself with no kids and can work remotely at an easy job. I don't know how 90% is satisfied with so much less.
- shadow-banned 7y ago
  This is me, and I'm still not "satisfied" - I want to leave the US. I find this completely bullshit.
- starpilot 7y ago
  The first thing you list is money. For others, it would be family, friends.
- hastes 7y ago
  Because median household income is on the rise, jobless rates in females are on decline, 8+ million Americans off food stamp dependence, and consumer confidence is at an 18 year high. People outside of Silicon Valley and Seattle really need to understand that this number is so high not only because of them (like me and you in this case, having great jobs and being single) but also because the average American worker in Buhl, Idaho is seeing their wages increase and their quality of life get better.
- war1025 7y ago
  Satisfaction is largely a relative thing. People notice if their situation is improving / staying the same / getting worse. They don't so much care about their absolute ranking in society.
  - chrismeller 7y ago
    Also note that, as another reply mentioned, this has little to do with actual monetary values. If you didn’t get a raise, that sucks. If your friends got laid off... well, then keeping your salary is great. If no one got laid off but you were able to buy a new x and none of your friends were, regardless of income changes, you’re still going to feel better. It’s “keeping up with the Joneses”.
    - hastes 7y ago
      This is a really good point that I also think has something to do with "would you rather gain 50 dollars or avoid losing 50 dollars, most people would avoid the loss". If you are not "losing" anything in daily life, but also not gaining much, you may be inclined to feel better or a least more optimistic.
- blowski 7y ago
  Good for you, it’s great to hear. I _love_ being a parent, and I love working in an open-plan office, so it’s great that we can both be happy despite wanting different things from life. Maybe the common thread is being paid well, but even then, I know people on minimum wage that seem very satisfied.
  - 93po 7y ago
    The no child comment was an implication about the cost of children, not that they make people unhappy (though statistically they do)
- bob33212 7y ago
  Super rich Hollywood people can't understand how you are happy without hanging out with models and celebrities at your Oceanview house.
  - virgilp 7y ago
    It’s not even true - they may be _less_ likely to be satisfied, for reasons tht you may find ridiculoous (but are not to them). I believe satisfaction comes mostly from within, not necessarily with what you have. It’s largely on you to observe either what you have - or what you don’t.
    - dwaltrip 7y ago
      Yes exactly. Satisfaction is significantly affected by your expectations. If your expectations change, then satisfaction changes as well.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jliptzin 7y ago
  Because it’s always about change in income, not absolute numbers. I guarantee you someone who went from making $50k to $100k in a year will report being happier than a guy who made a steady $1m each year.
- kube-system 7y ago
  Other studies have shown that happiness does not increase with income after the point at which people can afford to be comfortable. Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: income can help you with several parts of the hierarchy, but it cannot buy all of them.
  - dhdejejdhfyx 7y ago
    This is wrong. The studies have shown that there is a point past which more money yields rapidy diminishing happiness returns. That is different from not yielding any additional return at all.
    - bob33212 7y ago
      People are using it in the context of "should I take a job that I like more which pays X or should I take a job I like less that pays 2X" If X is 10k you should go with the 2X job. If X is 150k you should go with the 1x job
    - kube-system 7y ago
      If you are thinking about this highly-cited study, that is not what they concluded https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489 https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489 > We infer that beyond about $75,000/y, there is no improvement whatever in any of the three measures of emotional well-being. Although, even if we assume your assertion is true, it's a distinction without a difference in the context of the above thread.
shadow-banned 7y ago
This cannot be accurate. I've traveled the midwest, and so many are miserable. I don't buy this at all.
- hastes 7y ago
  Anecdotal at best.. your experience meeting maybe upwards of 50 people across the midwest cannot possibly be taken with the same consideration as a major polling outlet with 2500x the reach.
  - guidance 7y ago
    Do you get paid to make such posts? Or are you just incredibly blind, brainwashed, and naive beyond belief? Serious question. See my post above and argue with it, if you can. > 'your experience meeting maybe upwards of 50 people across the midwest' 50 people? Could you be any more obtuse? And a poll of 2500 hand-picked people represents the nation. You trust in these lying psychopaths is legendary. I've personally spoken to tens of thousands of people who all unanimously agree that you have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should get out more, instead of vegging out in front of the TV and/or Google. We are of course supposed to assume good intent, but the reality is the world is full of paid trolls, and your total detachment from reality is a strong indication that you're among that group. Prove me wrong and refute my post above if you can.
    - dang 7y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - guidance 7y ago
        We didn't do shit. You banned this account because you're a selfish, Lucifer-worshipping, Nazi piece of shit. As I already explained. Same reason you and your ilk banned all of the other intelligent commenters from this discussion--because you hate truth. This sort of behavior will end very badly for you and your so-called "civilization."
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
So USAmericans feeling greater pressure to claim they're satisfied? Acquiescence bias effects increasing in more fascist society? Would you all who live in USA say people are more satisfied? Why, in your opinion? [Edit: I'm interested in what is wrong with these questions, so if you feel they're bad questions and need downvoting I'd be happy to hear from you, email if you like.]
- satisfaction 7y ago
  Most of us just want to enjoy life. For the vast majority of Americans this does not involve becoming rich, enjoyment comes from family and the time we spend together, it's not about fancy degrees and nice material things. There will always be an ebb and flow of opportunity, sometimes there is enough opportunity that a larger than average number of American families earn large disposable incomes, those are great times. Just remember that we are still very religious and are brought up from a young age to be happy with what you have, not upset about what you don't have.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    >we are still very religious and are brought up from a young age to be happy with what you have, not upset about what you don't have In my personal experience, this teaching is just as prominent in non-religious upbringings, perhaps even more so.
    - satisfaction 7y ago
      That is great, but don't forget that organized dogmatic religions is where many of those lessons started. I'm happy that some of the core positive tenants of religions (that have historically fueled some of humanities worst atrocities) have migrated to being simply accepted as part of humanity and not always tied back to religion.
  - jakearmitage 7y ago
    Precisely. Everyone here mentions money first. They take the security and happiness of their loved ones for granted.
anonsivalley652 7y ago
What's the name of that meme with the dog in a house ablaze saying everything's fine?
- mistrial9 7y ago
  Dog House Fire meme worked
- philk10 7y ago
  This Is Fine - https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme-comic https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme...
- jakearmitage 7y ago
  Are you afraid of using your smartphone out on the streets? Are you afraid of going out after dark? Do you fear that your wife or kids might not arrive home alive? Do you keep a fake bag/wallet on your car for theft? Americans don't realize how blessed they are. Get out of your bubble for once and ask some immigrants why they left their countries.
  - auiya 7y ago
    Now ask somebody from the south end of Chicago these same questions.
dylan604 7y ago
Do we really trust the results of polls anymore? After the 2016 election where all of the polls showed Hillary winning the election, I just don't trust them at all. It's almost like people are treating polls like SPAM calls, and just tell them anything to keep them on the line as long as possible intentionally giving bogus answers.
- ianai 7y ago
  Agree. We’re living with every choice being polled and chosen by those polls. There’s nothing worse for any policy than a bad poll. Unless it’s the seeming acceptance of around 43% being a majority for some. Edit-it’s always worth considering the error bars on polls. News will gladly say A is preferred to B when their difference is well within error bars.
- war1025 7y ago
  > After the 2016 election where all of the polls showed Hillary winning the election The actual analysis of the polls showed Trump was well within striking distance of Hillary. People just didn't want to hear that.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    Why bring mass-insult style politics into this? The polls described large differences in likelihoods, not large differences in numbers. People were not ignoring the polls.
    - war1025 7y ago
      > Why bring mass-insult style politics into this? I didn't think I was?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  We shouldn't treat the results of polls as gospel truth, but we should trust them more than we trust our intuitive sense of what's gotta be true. A poll showing 90% of Americans are satisfied with their personal life is a pretty strong refutation of claims like "suchandsuch trend has propelled America to unknown depths of misery", even accounting for the possibility of bias.
z3ncyberpunk 7y ago
That's hilarious, deluded, and completely out of touch with reality
- 2bitencryption 7y ago
  It's a Gallup poll - do you have better information than Gallup?
  - hastes 7y ago
    They don't, they just love to shoot down anything that remotely challenges their ideas with big buzzwords and quick insults so that it deflects from the actual numbers and hard information.
    - happytoexplain 7y ago
      While I too disagree with the person you're referring to, why are you expressing such hatred for them, and such blind devotion to poll numbers?
      - hastes 7y ago
        How in any way could me saying that he used buzzwords and quick insults, which he did, with me having "blind devotion" to poll numbers and hatred for him. I don't hate anyone, and as far as the devotion to poll numbers. I am one of the people that heavily doubts poll numbers, and I am skeptical of these results as well, but I also personally believe that the statement the poll is making is true. I would be glad to debate the merits, results, methodology, sample size, or any other variable with you if you want.
daachi 7y ago
Based on 0.0003099022% of the population. Sure thing, I believe this.
happytoexplain 7y ago
"Satisfaction with personal life" will have very different implications for different people to the point of being useless. I feel underpaid and am unspeakably sad about the ways in which my society is declining, but I would answer "yes, extremely" if somebody asked if I was satisfied with my "personal" life. I think there are other people in my exact same position and with my exact same level of happiness who would answer differently if asked this specific question.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  But do we have a better estimate for things like happiness? Than questionnaires?
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    Perhaps not, but if the goal is to measure happiness, then in my opinion this specific questionnaire does not do that. I'm sure there are questionnaires with that goal that consist of more relevant and well-thought-out questions.
- datashow 7y ago
  > "Satisfaction with personal life" will have very different implications for different people to the point of being useless. Of course "satisfaction with personal life", like many things in survey, can have very different implications for different people. But it does not necessarily make it being useless. You could ask more questions about people specific satisfactions with personal life, it does not make the general sense of satisfaction with personal life useless.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    I'm not saying the problem is that people are made satisfied by different things. I'm saying that I don't believe the concept of "general satisfaction with personal life" is a useful or meaningful concept because of the English language - because of the different interpretations of what it means. For a counter-example, I think people have a much more consistent feeling of what it means to be "happy" in general.
blowski 7y ago
Why are all these comments so grumpy? “People are happy? What on earth is wrong with them?” The awful political situation right now has encouraged me to spend less time keeping up with news, and to spend more time reading classic literature. So, thanks to Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, I am feeling more satisfied with life - just not in the way you’d assume if I just said “I’m happy in my personal life”.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  This is dismissive and insulting. Justified or not, the people you're referring to are clearly incredulous that the poll accurately measures happiness, not that they think there is something wrong with being happy.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't agree. It seems very much like they're saying people couldn't be happy; that given the current state of the country it would be wrong to be satisfied.
  - blowski 7y ago
    I agree with you that the poll is probably poorly measured. However, there seems to be a lot of confirmation bias going on in this thread - “This surprises me, therefore it must be wrong”. They’re not point to any more reliable evidence that suggests the poll is wrong, just giving anecdotal opinions.
    - guidance 7y ago
      > 'I agree with you that the poll is probably poorly measured.' In point of fact, it's a blatant lie. Not a shred of truth to it. 90% of Americans happy with their lives? LOL. "Step away from the crack pipe." People are so happy to be alive they are at each other's throats daily over any one of millions of political disagreements. People are so happy they are checking out by the millions via drug overdoses and suicide. Close to 10% of the entire nation is in prison. Most of those work in sweat shops for big corporations at 50 cents an hour. I bet they're thrilled to be alive also. We're told unemployment is 2.7%, but when we calculate the numbers ourselves using the exact same methodology as the U.S. government used during the previous Great Depression, we find they have somehow misplaced a decimal point--and that unemployment now is in fact worse than it was in the 1930s. Which is obvious, to those of us who have eyes to see and ears to hear of all the "I hurt muh back" types roaming about the land, "getting a check", with no gainful employment to speak of. Anyone who doesn't believe me can go calculate the numbers themselves; but most won't. What about all of those people screaming about lack of health care, racism, etc; all roses and butterflies in the USA, amirite? Definitely no major shootouts going on between gangs in Baltimore and Detroit right now. No mile after mile of economic devastation, bombed out neighborhoods as far as the eye can see. Yet another example of the zen garden of bliss that is the USA, with 90% of everyone happy as can be. Tent cities full of homeless, as far as the eye can see, in major and increasingly even minor cities across the land? Must I really continue??? The USA, much like the rest of the entire world, is controlled by lying psychopaths. And you're complicit.
lunias 7y ago
This has got to be fake right? Economic disparity, environmental uncertainty, political nonsense. Either the people surveyed are completely tuned out and just glad to be able to watch Netflix all day or mass-shootings are a new way of expressing how personally happy you are.
_2008_ 7y ago
Fucking lies. Simply ignore the suicide rate, and opioid OD rate.
smileysteve 7y ago
This seems to contradict the opioid and suicide epidemics that reduced the American life expectancy statistic; But is a welcome change.
simmanian 7y ago
If everyone is satisfied, what then is everyone chasing after all the time?
- Jach 7y ago
  Having something to chase is part of being satisfied.
Moodles 7y ago
I understand the topic is naturally political, but it would be nice to see discussions not super political bashing Trump vs Clinton and so on. A lot of the comments I see here are pretty subjective, anecdotal and emotional. I really don't like seeing this on Hacker News. Note in the article it says: "WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup's four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003." In 2003 there were a lot of issues too. 9/11 recently happened, some wars in the Middle East... So why not read the actual article? They try to go into details as to why people are feeling happier. E.g. "Household income, political party affiliation and marital status are associated with the largest subgroup differences in Americans' satisfaction with their personal life . Roughly 95% of Americans who live in high-income households, who identify as Republicans and who are married say they are satisfied with their personal life -- and about three in four among each of these groups are very satisfied. Meanwhile, adults in low-income households are the least likely to say they are satisfied with their life, followed by Democrats and unmarried adults. Among each of these groups, small majorities report being very satisfied. Low-income Americans hold the distinction of having the lowest percentage very satisfied It's likely no coincidence that Americans' heightened satisfaction with their personal life comes as confidence in the U.S. economy and their personal finances are also at long-term or record highs." The article even talks about races and genders, which again is correlated with income. Being married too. So presumably this happiness is in large part due to the economic boom of late. The article even concludes with this. Comments here can say the question is ambiguous or people don't know how they feel themselves all they want, but the evidence, and just plain intuition, strongly suggests it has a lot to do with the economy. People reeeeaaaallllyy care about bread on the table for their family, not tweets from the president, or the "political climate", or Bad Thing X, or any of the other comments here. I fully expect downvotes, but hey ho, that's emotional politics for you. What I've actually written should be pretty non-controversial honestly: TL,DR; "People care about family and bread on the table a lot".
- thrower123 7y ago
  Somewhere on Twitter that I can't find, this survey was charted back into the 1970s. The lowest the positive response was reported was during stagflation, oil embargo, post-Vietnam years, and it was in the 70%.
ravenstine 7y ago
I have my doubts in people's ability to assess their own emotions. I'm fairly conscientious, but I often have trouble boiling down my thoughts and feelings into simple words like "happy" or "satisfied". If I were asked if I'm satisfied with my personal life, I'd say yes, but only because saying I'm dissatisfied is negative and gets interpreted the wrong way. People assume too much and make judgments when you give them even the slightest hint that not everything is perfect with you. Life is too complicated for me to actually satisfied or dissatisfied.
- dhdejejdhfyx 7y ago
  I feel like there's too many "I" and "me" statements here to substantiate the conclusion that people at large can't assess their own emotions.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    I didn't say that people at large can't assess their emotions. When I said I have my doubts, what I meant is that I think that people are generally poor at it, which doesn't mean I don't think they're capable. There's a difference. The rest of what I wrote wasn't really my full reasoning for that conclusion. I can only experience my own emotions, so I have to go with that. And I don't have any diagnosed psychiatric conditions, so I don't think it's that unfair to reflect on my emotional introspection. I never dictated anything other than that I have "doubts". I don't have a specific reason why I think people aren't very good at assessing their emotions. It's a conclusion from an amalgam of my experiences with other people. People can certainly recognize if they are happy or sad, for instance, but I don't find they are very good at distinguishing between things like contentment and happiness. I've met lots of people who think that an absence of happiness is sadness, when in reality someone can be emotionally neutral.(the connotations around the word unhappy don't help) It's common for people to confuse depression for sadness. Personality and how someone can respond to emotion can mask their feelings, making them less obvious to both others and themselves.
2bitencryption 7y ago
I wonder what the difference is between this poll and this other poll from last month, with a writeup by the same author: https://news.gallup.com/poll/276503/happiness-not-quite-widespread-usual.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/276503/happiness-not-quite-wide... EDIT: It seems the primary difference is in the question: Asking "are you satisfied with your personal life" garners much more of an enthusiastic response than "are you happy", apparently?

33 points by datashow 7y ago

metalliqaz 7y ago

Another signal that we will have 4 more years of Trump.

acephal 7y ago

"Tepid satisfaction"?

93po 7y ago

I'm satisfied but it's only because I make more than twice the median household income by myself with no kids and can work remotely at an easy job. I don't know how 90% is satisfied with so much less.

shadow-banned 7y ago
This is me, and I'm still not "satisfied" - I want to leave the US. I find this completely bullshit.
starpilot 7y ago
The first thing you list is money. For others, it would be family, friends.
hastes 7y ago
Because median household income is on the rise, jobless rates in females are on decline, 8+ million Americans off food stamp dependence, and consumer confidence is at an 18 year high. People outside of Silicon Valley and Seattle really need to understand that this number is so high not only because of them (like me and you in this case, having great jobs and being single) but also because the average American worker in Buhl, Idaho is seeing their wages increase and their quality of life get better.
war1025 7y ago
Satisfaction is largely a relative thing. People notice if their situation is improving / staying the same / getting worse. They don't so much care about their absolute ranking in society.
- chrismeller 7y ago
  Also note that, as another reply mentioned, this has little to do with actual monetary values. If you didn’t get a raise, that sucks. If your friends got laid off... well, then keeping your salary is great. If no one got laid off but you were able to buy a new x and none of your friends were, regardless of income changes, you’re still going to feel better. It’s “keeping up with the Joneses”.
  - hastes 7y ago
    This is a really good point that I also think has something to do with "would you rather gain 50 dollars or avoid losing 50 dollars, most people would avoid the loss". If you are not "losing" anything in daily life, but also not gaining much, you may be inclined to feel better or a least more optimistic.
blowski 7y ago
Good for you, it’s great to hear. I _love_ being a parent, and I love working in an open-plan office, so it’s great that we can both be happy despite wanting different things from life. Maybe the common thread is being paid well, but even then, I know people on minimum wage that seem very satisfied.
- 93po 7y ago
  The no child comment was an implication about the cost of children, not that they make people unhappy (though statistically they do)
bob33212 7y ago
Super rich Hollywood people can't understand how you are happy without hanging out with models and celebrities at your Oceanview house.
- virgilp 7y ago
  It’s not even true - they may be _less_ likely to be satisfied, for reasons tht you may find ridiculoous (but are not to them). I believe satisfaction comes mostly from within, not necessarily with what you have. It’s largely on you to observe either what you have - or what you don’t.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    Yes exactly. Satisfaction is significantly affected by your expectations. If your expectations change, then satisfaction changes as well.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jliptzin 7y ago
Because it’s always about change in income, not absolute numbers. I guarantee you someone who went from making $50k to $100k in a year will report being happier than a guy who made a steady $1m each year.
kube-system 7y ago
Other studies have shown that happiness does not increase with income after the point at which people can afford to be comfortable. Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: income can help you with several parts of the hierarchy, but it cannot buy all of them.
- dhdejejdhfyx 7y ago
  This is wrong. The studies have shown that there is a point past which more money yields rapidy diminishing happiness returns. That is different from not yielding any additional return at all.
  - bob33212 7y ago
    People are using it in the context of "should I take a job that I like more which pays X or should I take a job I like less that pays 2X" If X is 10k you should go with the 2X job. If X is 150k you should go with the 1x job
  - kube-system 7y ago
    If you are thinking about this highly-cited study, that is not what they concluded https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489 https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489 > We infer that beyond about $75,000/y, there is no improvement whatever in any of the three measures of emotional well-being. Although, even if we assume your assertion is true, it's a distinction without a difference in the context of the above thread.

shadow-banned 7y ago

This cannot be accurate. I've traveled the midwest, and so many are miserable. I don't buy this at all.

hastes 7y ago
Anecdotal at best.. your experience meeting maybe upwards of 50 people across the midwest cannot possibly be taken with the same consideration as a major polling outlet with 2500x the reach.
- guidance 7y ago
  Do you get paid to make such posts? Or are you just incredibly blind, brainwashed, and naive beyond belief? Serious question. See my post above and argue with it, if you can. > 'your experience meeting maybe upwards of 50 people across the midwest' 50 people? Could you be any more obtuse? And a poll of 2500 hand-picked people represents the nation. You trust in these lying psychopaths is legendary. I've personally spoken to tens of thousands of people who all unanimously agree that you have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should get out more, instead of vegging out in front of the TV and/or Google. We are of course supposed to assume good intent, but the reality is the world is full of paid trolls, and your total detachment from reality is a strong indication that you're among that group. Prove me wrong and refute my post above if you can.
  - dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - guidance 7y ago
      We didn't do shit. You banned this account because you're a selfish, Lucifer-worshipping, Nazi piece of shit. As I already explained. Same reason you and your ilk banned all of the other intelligent commenters from this discussion--because you hate truth. This sort of behavior will end very badly for you and your so-called "civilization."

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

So USAmericans feeling greater pressure to claim they're satisfied? Acquiescence bias effects increasing in more fascist society? Would you all who live in USA say people are more satisfied? Why, in your opinion? [Edit: I'm interested in what is wrong with these questions, so if you feel they're bad questions and need downvoting I'd be happy to hear from you, email if you like.]

satisfaction 7y ago
Most of us just want to enjoy life. For the vast majority of Americans this does not involve becoming rich, enjoyment comes from family and the time we spend together, it's not about fancy degrees and nice material things. There will always be an ebb and flow of opportunity, sometimes there is enough opportunity that a larger than average number of American families earn large disposable incomes, those are great times. Just remember that we are still very religious and are brought up from a young age to be happy with what you have, not upset about what you don't have.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  >we are still very religious and are brought up from a young age to be happy with what you have, not upset about what you don't have In my personal experience, this teaching is just as prominent in non-religious upbringings, perhaps even more so.
  - satisfaction 7y ago
    That is great, but don't forget that organized dogmatic religions is where many of those lessons started. I'm happy that some of the core positive tenants of religions (that have historically fueled some of humanities worst atrocities) have migrated to being simply accepted as part of humanity and not always tied back to religion.
- jakearmitage 7y ago
  Precisely. Everyone here mentions money first. They take the security and happiness of their loved ones for granted.

anonsivalley652 7y ago

What's the name of that meme with the dog in a house ablaze saying everything's fine?

mistrial9 7y ago
Dog House Fire meme worked
philk10 7y ago
This Is Fine - https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme-comic https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme...
jakearmitage 7y ago
Are you afraid of using your smartphone out on the streets? Are you afraid of going out after dark? Do you fear that your wife or kids might not arrive home alive? Do you keep a fake bag/wallet on your car for theft? Americans don't realize how blessed they are. Get out of your bubble for once and ask some immigrants why they left their countries.
- auiya 7y ago
  Now ask somebody from the south end of Chicago these same questions.

dylan604 7y ago

Do we really trust the results of polls anymore? After the 2016 election where all of the polls showed Hillary winning the election, I just don't trust them at all. It's almost like people are treating polls like SPAM calls, and just tell them anything to keep them on the line as long as possible intentionally giving bogus answers.

ianai 7y ago
Agree. We’re living with every choice being polled and chosen by those polls. There’s nothing worse for any policy than a bad poll. Unless it’s the seeming acceptance of around 43% being a majority for some. Edit-it’s always worth considering the error bars on polls. News will gladly say A is preferred to B when their difference is well within error bars.
war1025 7y ago
> After the 2016 election where all of the polls showed Hillary winning the election The actual analysis of the polls showed Trump was well within striking distance of Hillary. People just didn't want to hear that.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  Why bring mass-insult style politics into this? The polls described large differences in likelihoods, not large differences in numbers. People were not ignoring the polls.
  - war1025 7y ago
    > Why bring mass-insult style politics into this? I didn't think I was?
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
We shouldn't treat the results of polls as gospel truth, but we should trust them more than we trust our intuitive sense of what's gotta be true. A poll showing 90% of Americans are satisfied with their personal life is a pretty strong refutation of claims like "suchandsuch trend has propelled America to unknown depths of misery", even accounting for the possibility of bias.

z3ncyberpunk 7y ago

That's hilarious, deluded, and completely out of touch with reality

2bitencryption 7y ago
It's a Gallup poll - do you have better information than Gallup?
- hastes 7y ago
  They don't, they just love to shoot down anything that remotely challenges their ideas with big buzzwords and quick insults so that it deflects from the actual numbers and hard information.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    While I too disagree with the person you're referring to, why are you expressing such hatred for them, and such blind devotion to poll numbers?
    - hastes 7y ago
      How in any way could me saying that he used buzzwords and quick insults, which he did, with me having "blind devotion" to poll numbers and hatred for him. I don't hate anyone, and as far as the devotion to poll numbers. I am one of the people that heavily doubts poll numbers, and I am skeptical of these results as well, but I also personally believe that the statement the poll is making is true. I would be glad to debate the merits, results, methodology, sample size, or any other variable with you if you want.

daachi 7y ago

Based on 0.0003099022% of the population. Sure thing, I believe this.

happytoexplain 7y ago

"Satisfaction with personal life" will have very different implications for different people to the point of being useless. I feel underpaid and am unspeakably sad about the ways in which my society is declining, but I would answer "yes, extremely" if somebody asked if I was satisfied with my "personal" life. I think there are other people in my exact same position and with my exact same level of happiness who would answer differently if asked this specific question.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
But do we have a better estimate for things like happiness? Than questionnaires?
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  Perhaps not, but if the goal is to measure happiness, then in my opinion this specific questionnaire does not do that. I'm sure there are questionnaires with that goal that consist of more relevant and well-thought-out questions.
datashow 7y ago
> "Satisfaction with personal life" will have very different implications for different people to the point of being useless. Of course "satisfaction with personal life", like many things in survey, can have very different implications for different people. But it does not necessarily make it being useless. You could ask more questions about people specific satisfactions with personal life, it does not make the general sense of satisfaction with personal life useless.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  I'm not saying the problem is that people are made satisfied by different things. I'm saying that I don't believe the concept of "general satisfaction with personal life" is a useful or meaningful concept because of the English language - because of the different interpretations of what it means. For a counter-example, I think people have a much more consistent feeling of what it means to be "happy" in general.

blowski 7y ago

Why are all these comments so grumpy? “People are happy? What on earth is wrong with them?” The awful political situation right now has encouraged me to spend less time keeping up with news, and to spend more time reading classic literature. So, thanks to Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, I am feeling more satisfied with life - just not in the way you’d assume if I just said “I’m happy in my personal life”.

happytoexplain 7y ago
This is dismissive and insulting. Justified or not, the people you're referring to are clearly incredulous that the poll accurately measures happiness, not that they think there is something wrong with being happy.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I don't agree. It seems very much like they're saying people couldn't be happy; that given the current state of the country it would be wrong to be satisfied.
- blowski 7y ago
  I agree with you that the poll is probably poorly measured. However, there seems to be a lot of confirmation bias going on in this thread - “This surprises me, therefore it must be wrong”. They’re not point to any more reliable evidence that suggests the poll is wrong, just giving anecdotal opinions.
  - guidance 7y ago
    > 'I agree with you that the poll is probably poorly measured.' In point of fact, it's a blatant lie. Not a shred of truth to it. 90% of Americans happy with their lives? LOL. "Step away from the crack pipe." People are so happy to be alive they are at each other's throats daily over any one of millions of political disagreements. People are so happy they are checking out by the millions via drug overdoses and suicide. Close to 10% of the entire nation is in prison. Most of those work in sweat shops for big corporations at 50 cents an hour. I bet they're thrilled to be alive also. We're told unemployment is 2.7%, but when we calculate the numbers ourselves using the exact same methodology as the U.S. government used during the previous Great Depression, we find they have somehow misplaced a decimal point--and that unemployment now is in fact worse than it was in the 1930s. Which is obvious, to those of us who have eyes to see and ears to hear of all the "I hurt muh back" types roaming about the land, "getting a check", with no gainful employment to speak of. Anyone who doesn't believe me can go calculate the numbers themselves; but most won't. What about all of those people screaming about lack of health care, racism, etc; all roses and butterflies in the USA, amirite? Definitely no major shootouts going on between gangs in Baltimore and Detroit right now. No mile after mile of economic devastation, bombed out neighborhoods as far as the eye can see. Yet another example of the zen garden of bliss that is the USA, with 90% of everyone happy as can be. Tent cities full of homeless, as far as the eye can see, in major and increasingly even minor cities across the land? Must I really continue??? The USA, much like the rest of the entire world, is controlled by lying psychopaths. And you're complicit.

lunias 7y ago

This has got to be fake right? Economic disparity, environmental uncertainty, political nonsense. Either the people surveyed are completely tuned out and just glad to be able to watch Netflix all day or mass-shootings are a new way of expressing how personally happy you are.

_2008_ 7y ago

Fucking lies. Simply ignore the suicide rate, and opioid OD rate.

smileysteve 7y ago

This seems to contradict the opioid and suicide epidemics that reduced the American life expectancy statistic; But is a welcome change.

simmanian 7y ago

If everyone is satisfied, what then is everyone chasing after all the time?

Jach 7y ago
Having something to chase is part of being satisfied.

Moodles 7y ago

I understand the topic is naturally political, but it would be nice to see discussions not super political bashing Trump vs Clinton and so on. A lot of the comments I see here are pretty subjective, anecdotal and emotional. I really don't like seeing this on Hacker News. Note in the article it says: "WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup's four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003." In 2003 there were a lot of issues too. 9/11 recently happened, some wars in the Middle East... So why not read the actual article? They try to go into details as to why people are feeling happier. E.g. "Household income, political party affiliation and marital status are associated with the largest subgroup differences in Americans' satisfaction with their personal life . Roughly 95% of Americans who live in high-income households, who identify as Republicans and who are married say they are satisfied with their personal life -- and about three in four among each of these groups are very satisfied. Meanwhile, adults in low-income households are the least likely to say they are satisfied with their life, followed by Democrats and unmarried adults. Among each of these groups, small majorities report being very satisfied. Low-income Americans hold the distinction of having the lowest percentage very satisfied It's likely no coincidence that Americans' heightened satisfaction with their personal life comes as confidence in the U.S. economy and their personal finances are also at long-term or record highs." The article even talks about races and genders, which again is correlated with income. Being married too. So presumably this happiness is in large part due to the economic boom of late. The article even concludes with this. Comments here can say the question is ambiguous or people don't know how they feel themselves all they want, but the evidence, and just plain intuition, strongly suggests it has a lot to do with the economy. People reeeeaaaallllyy care about bread on the table for their family, not tweets from the president, or the "political climate", or Bad Thing X, or any of the other comments here. I fully expect downvotes, but hey ho, that's emotional politics for you. What I've actually written should be pretty non-controversial honestly: TL,DR; "People care about family and bread on the table a lot".

thrower123 7y ago
Somewhere on Twitter that I can't find, this survey was charted back into the 1970s. The lowest the positive response was reported was during stagflation, oil embargo, post-Vietnam years, and it was in the 70%.

ravenstine 7y ago

I have my doubts in people's ability to assess their own emotions. I'm fairly conscientious, but I often have trouble boiling down my thoughts and feelings into simple words like "happy" or "satisfied". If I were asked if I'm satisfied with my personal life, I'd say yes, but only because saying I'm dissatisfied is negative and gets interpreted the wrong way. People assume too much and make judgments when you give them even the slightest hint that not everything is perfect with you. Life is too complicated for me to actually satisfied or dissatisfied.

dhdejejdhfyx 7y ago
I feel like there's too many "I" and "me" statements here to substantiate the conclusion that people at large can't assess their own emotions.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  I didn't say that people at large can't assess their emotions. When I said I have my doubts, what I meant is that I think that people are generally poor at it, which doesn't mean I don't think they're capable. There's a difference. The rest of what I wrote wasn't really my full reasoning for that conclusion. I can only experience my own emotions, so I have to go with that. And I don't have any diagnosed psychiatric conditions, so I don't think it's that unfair to reflect on my emotional introspection. I never dictated anything other than that I have "doubts". I don't have a specific reason why I think people aren't very good at assessing their emotions. It's a conclusion from an amalgam of my experiences with other people. People can certainly recognize if they are happy or sad, for instance, but I don't find they are very good at distinguishing between things like contentment and happiness. I've met lots of people who think that an absence of happiness is sadness, when in reality someone can be emotionally neutral.(the connotations around the word unhappy don't help) It's common for people to confuse depression for sadness. Personality and how someone can respond to emotion can mask their feelings, making them less obvious to both others and themselves.

2bitencryption 7y ago

I wonder what the difference is between this poll and this other poll from last month, with a writeup by the same author: https://news.gallup.com/poll/276503/happiness-not-quite-widespread-usual.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/276503/happiness-not-quite-wide... EDIT: It seems the primary difference is in the question: Asking "are you satisfied with your personal life" garners much more of an enthusiastic response than "are you happy", apparently?