Typically, these posts are devoted to sharing “glass half-full” anecdotes and recent stories that counter much of the seemingly bad news that is out there. We may need to double down on this because some of the recent findings that caught our attention.

The first is a distressing piece of news regarding happiness. Each year, Gallup World Polling compiles a World-Happiness Report, using quality of life survey data from 140 nations, averaged over three years, along with input from interdisciplinary experts from the fields of economics, psychology, sociology and beyond to rank countries based on their population’s happiness. This year’s report, released in March, found Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden atop the rankings. Those countries have routinely been at or near the top of past rankings, so no surprise there. What was surprising was that the United States came in at number 23, the first time in the survey’s 12-year history that the U.S. fell out of the top twenty. And the news gets worse regarding young people. Only 9% of voters aged 18-29 felt the country was heading in the right direction.

There are many possible reasons for this, but we think it might have to do with misinformation floating around. According to the Guardian, in a recent Harris Poll of 2,000 U.S. adults, 67% of Republicans, 53% of Independents, and 49% of Democrats said the U.S. was in a recession, 72% thought inflation was increasing, 49% thought the stock market had fallen over the past year and 49% thought unemployment was at a 50-year high. All of these are factually incorrect. The S&P 500 was up 9.5% year-to-date (through May 10 when the survey was taken), the unemployment rate is 4%, historically low for the United States, and inflation was reported at 3.4% through April for the preceding 12 months. (Inflation is the one statistic that is trickier to measure, so we’ll forgive the survey takers for this one.)

That’s a lot to counter in one post, but the following is compelling. According to a recent paper titled “Through Progress and Peril” by Johan Norberg of the Cato Institute, the last 20 years have produced crises galore, including war, terrorism, pandemics, and lockdowns, and yet this has been the best twenty years in history when looking at indicators of human well-being. According to this work, “around a third of the income level mankind has ever attained was produced during these two decades; 130,000 people reduced global extreme poverty – every single day; the child mortality rate almost halved; 4.4 million fewer children died in 2022 than in 2002; chronic hunger was reduced by almost a third; and at the same time, global inequity declined for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.” Not bad for just 20 years!

We continue to be buoyed by these types of uplifting stories and we are true believers that ingenuity, technology, adaptability, and goodness will prevail, this optimism guides the advice and counsel we provide to our clients.

Enjoy the start to summer 2024 with a glass half-full of your favorite refreshing beverage!

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