Cheer Up America, You Get Some of the Most Happy Awards, Too

The World Happiness Report was released on March 20, which, in case you didn’t know, was the UN’s International Day of Happiness.  The big reveal is who is the happiest country of them all. And who is up or down.

The media works itself into a frenzy. After all, everyone loves lists, and who doesn’t want to be happy?

If you are an American, it’s damn depressing.  Yet again, the report finds we’re not the happiest country by far, and worse yet, says we keep getting less happy. People under thirty are apparently very unhappy.  The NYTimes headline says, “Americans are unhappier than ever. Solo dining may be a sign.”

Don’t blame it on the election.

Every year, Gallup surveys around 1000 people in every country for the report. It asks them to rank how happy they are on a scale of 1-10. Then, the surveys for the preceding three years are pooled to get the score for the current year. It compares the scores across countries. The 2025 report combines 2022, 2023 and 2024. 

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Finland is the winner for the 8th year running.

This leads to lots of stories about what Americans and everyone else can learn from the blissful Finns. It’s a great tourist draw. Finland promotes master classes to Find Your Inner Finn. It seems to involve taking a lot of saunas.

Hold on, folks: it is time to rethink that trip to Helsinki. And maybe say “Aloha” instead.

Cheer Up, America

To begin with, why should America, with a diverse population of 340 million people, spread across 50 states, from sea to shining sea and then some, compare itself to a place with 5.6 million people on a sliver of land?

Finland is one of the 27 Member States of the European Union. The EU has 449 million people, which is more than the U.S., but in the same football stadium as large jurisdictions go.  EU citizens can live and work anywhere in the EU just like U.S. residents can in the U.S. Next to India, the EU is the largest democracy in the world.

A fairer comparison would be between the U.S. and the entire European Union. And guess what happens then?

The U.S. is the WINNER!

America Wins Two Most Happy Awards

The U.S. posted a happiness score of 6.724, beating the EU at only 6.610. It also beat India, which came in at 118 with a score of 4.389. We topped the two largest democracies in the world!  (The EU score is a population-weighted average of the individual Member State scores.)

America wins the Happiest Large Democracy Award.

Now, a difference of 0.114 might seem like a whisker. In the WHR approach, though, that can be many differences in rankings — and bragging rights.

The U.S. also leads the world’s superpowers. It trounced Russia at 5.945 and China at 5.921, to win the Happiest Superpower Award.

You cannot beat the U.S. if you want to live in the happiest superpower or one of the three largest democracies.

Americans Could be Happier, but they Aren’t Less Happy

Much of the media coverage for the 2025 WHR talks about how unhappy Americans are getting even less happy. 

That’s not true based on data for 2021-2024.

The U.S. scored 6.724 in the 2025 WHR rankings and 6.725 in the 2024 WHR rankings.

Those are arithmetically and statistically virtually indistinguishable.

In fact, according to the WHR surveys, Americans were just as happy in 2024 as they were in 2021.  To see why, we need a detour into moving averages. 

The 2025 and 2024 three-year averages have 2022 and 2023 in common. The 2025 score swapped out 2021 for 2024. The score barely changed, meaning the scores from the 2024 and 2021 surveys must have been virtually identical. 

(The U.S. scores were trending down before 2021 and an inspection of the moving averages suggests that was a big drop in happiness between the 2020 and 2021 surveys, which has persisted.)

Find Your Inner Finn or Get the Aloha Spirit?

Yes, Finland is the happiest country on Earth with a whopping score of 7.736 — more than a full point ahead of the U.S. on the 10-scale.  Before you pack your bags to find your inner Finn, you might want to see if you can find happiness closer to home.

If we’re going to compare Finland to the United States, why not compare it to an individual state?

We expect a lot of variation in happiness across U.S. states, just as there is across EU Member States.  According to the WHR 2025 report, Greece was one of the unhappiest countries in Europe. It came in at 5.776, which is almost two full points below Finland, and almost a full point below Germany.

Unfortunately, the WHR report lumps the U.S. states together.  It does the same 1,000-person survey for the entire U.S., with 340 million people, as it does in Finland, with 5.8 million people.

A study based on 2008-2017 data, however, found that many U.S. states had a higher level of happiness than Finland and other Nordic countries.

 Two economists combined 1.9 million Gallup survey responses for the U.S. and 3.5 million for other countries and crunched the numbers. (See my 2024 happiness article for more details.) They supplemented the 10-step measure the WHR survey uses with several other positive and negative indicators of happiness — such as, did you enjoy your day yesterday and were you in pain yesterday.

Aloha! The happiest state was Hawaii. U.S. states captured 9 of the top 10 spots. Finland was down at 51 right behind Connecticut.

Of course, the study is dated. It is still likely, though, that Hawaii ranks much higher in the U.S. on the happiness charts and may even still be happier than Finland. World Population Review scores U.S. states on a scale from 0-100 based on 31 metrics.  It documents the same tremendous variation in happiness as we saw in the EHR for the EU. The state scores varied from a low of 30.0 to a high of 68.7.

So maybe you should ditch the sauna and try a luau.  Instead of finding your Inner Finn, get the Aloha Spirit. 

The Science of Happiness (Or Lack Thereof)

In the 1950s, American physiologist Ancel Keys noticed that people in several relatively poor Mediterranean countries with similar diets had much better health outcomes than those in wealthier countries. This led to his ground-breaking seven-country study. It confirmed the health benefits of following what we now call the Mediterranean diet.

Other observational and randomized studies confirmed his findings.  If you follow the diet, you are likely to have a longer and healthier life than if you eat a meat-heavy diet. This research led to practical results based on rigorous research. 

If you switch from a typical American diet to a Mediterranean diet, you will add years to your life. Whether you’ll be happier with fewer burgers and fries, I can’t say.

By contrast, the happiness rankings are about as solid as the latest self-help book or diet fad.

Measuring happiness by asking people to rank it on a 10-point scale is sketchy, as I showed in my article last year. The economists who did the 2008-2017 study found that the rankings changed a lot when they simply supplemented the 10-point question with other positive and negative indicators of well-being. 

Mexico’s happiness rankings make you wonder what’s going on.  Mexico has shot up the happiness scale in the last three years from 6.330 to 6.979, vaulting from 36 to 10th place with the Nordics in its sights.

That burst of happiness must mean their score for the calendar year 2024 was off the charts to pull the 3-year averages up that much.  Yet Mexico ranks 76th in GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power).

There is no scientific basis for concluding that Americans should be more like the Finns.  No serious researcher would claim that you’ll be happier if you buy a sauna, move to Finland, or take Inner Finn classes. Or that Greeks should have luaus or move to Mexico.

Naked with Strangers, or a Walk with the Dog

According to the Finnish ambassador, one reason Finns are so happy is their “weekly sauna sessions.” He even uses them for diplomatic meetings in DC: “When you are half-naked or even sometimes completely naked, it allows for deeper discussion.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather throw on a loud Hawaiian shirt, head to Maui, and try a luau. Better yet, take my dog for a walk after a healthy dinner of fresh fish and veggies — fully clothed, thank you very much.

 

Dr. David S. Evans is an economist who has published more than 10 books and 200 articles, many related to entrepreneurship, platforms, and the digital economy. He is Chairman, Market Platform Dynamics and Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group. He has taught at the University College London and the University of Chicago Law School. For more details see davidsevans.org.

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