While the American gross domestic product, a primary measure of prosperity, more than doubled in the last thirty years, the proportion of the population describing itself as “very happy” declined. The decline is about 5 percent. This might not seem like much, but 5 percent translates into about 14 million people—people who would have said in the seventies they were very happy would not say so today. The same pattern is present when respondents are asked more specific questions—about how happy they are with their marriages, their jobs, their financial circumstances, and their places of
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