A bit of a chart crime going on here. The source: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends The original source shows mor

A bit of a chart crime going on here. The source: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends The original source shows more clearly how they only survey once every 3 years. So it's 2018 and 2021. The curvy line in the HN source suggests that 2019 and 2020 saw equal declines but this is an illusion as there's no data. Obviously the pandemic likely explains the difference between 2018 and 2021, but another interesting difference is that where they normally do in-person interviews, this time they used email. This might only strengthen the effect of "misery" as people tend to shy away from saying they're unhappy in person but gladly do so via email. Finally, some perspective is missing. Change the response in the link I shared to "Pretty happy" and it's a stable 55%, rising even. If you combine "very happy" and "pretty happy", you end up at some 75%. "For the first time in polling history, in other words, Americans are more likely to say they’re not happy than to say they’re very happy." Versus: "Consistent with the entire polling history, the vast majority (75%) of Americans are pretty happy to very happy, despite the pandemic causing a spike in unhappy people."