Those of us in our mid-50s aren’t exactly happy either right now.
I’m 41 and I’ve been miserable since elementary school.
Slightly related perhaps, at least if you’re an HBS grad.
Portion of job-seeking Harvard Business School students who were unemployed three months after graduation
- in 2022 : 1/10
- In 2024 : 1/4
From Harper’s Index 4/2025
Harvard business bros is how we got into this mess in the first place. Quarterly targets are a scourge on humanity.
Maybe having money hungry dads who were in their 20s in the 80s when Regan was creaming his pleats over deregulating banks and Wall Street who then went on to send their wet socks to business schools was a scam all along.
It pisses me off so much because the goddamn problem is RIGHT IN FRONT of everyone’s eyes and yet so much energy is spent on bullshitting the masses…I want off this ride
How else make line go up?
Not just under 30. My husband is disabled and if ACA or VA benefits get cut he will die. Horribly but slowly, in our house where I will have to take care of him until the end. And pray we still have enough of a functioning society to bury him when the time comes. How I am supposed to feel anything other than horror and dread for the future!?
When asked how miserable millennials are, the response was overwhelmingly unchanged, in-fact the generation regards itself as having the shittiest life experience marked by late-stage capitalism, and the adoption of a boring cyberpunk dystopia. US millennials largely see retirement as something impossible, as many cannot afford homes, cars, or healthcare.
See, that’s why they just mention under 30s, because it’s far worse for the rest of us.
I am in my mid 20s and Gen Z. Most under 30s are Gen Z now.
Yes, I know, thats why in my made up quote I talked about millennials.
We’ve been suffering for a hell of a long time. A lot of us were young children when we watched the planes slam into the world trade center on the morning news before going to school and acting like we didn’t see the most horrific thing in the world.
Right after Columbine of course. And can’t forget about the Oklahoma bombing. It’s… Been rough
At least the 90s were somewhat stable I guess? I was only two when 9/11 happened but I remember Hurricane Katrina and the Recession vividly. America has always been one disaster away from ruining your life. Lately tornados have been happening all around me and there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it.
Not sure where you are, but I grew up in tornado alley. After a while, you just get used to it.
Like, I distinctly remember being in a car dealership (think massive plate glass walls) when a tornado siren went off, and most of the sales drones were basically nose on the glass looking out at the green sky. I was very amused when the manager walked out and gave the professional equivalent of ‘dudes, what the actual fuck are you doing?’
It’s one of those things you learned the danger of. If it was raining hard, you didn’t fuck around.
The siren always goes off once the rotation is detected by radar. You got a little bit of time to dick around because unless it’s EF3 or above it’s unlikely to start damage that quickly.
Plus if it’s an EF3, you’ll find out pretty quick. EF4s you’re gonna need luck on your side and EF5s? Well. Just hope it isn’t an EF5.
We view the late 40s through the 70s as a golden age for the American middle class. People raising families off a single income. Yearly vacations. Affordable higher education.
Know why?
We taxed the ever-loving fuck out of the wealthy back then.
Then the wealthy bought the politicians and stopped that from happening.
And now we’re all sad.
DO. NOT. VOTE. FOR. ANYONE. THAT. DOESN’T. RUN. ON. TAXING. THE. WEALTHY. MORE.
Is absurd that we essentially have a regressive income tax. I also wouldn’t ignore the global environment during that period.
During those decades, the US was effectively the only industrialized nation in the world. Everyone else either never had factories to begin with, or had smoldering piles of rubble where their factories used to be.
I found it astonishing that there isn’t even a 0% tax bracket anymore federally. It starts at 10% when you make your first fucking dollar. We’ve gone batshit backwards in this country to the point where we’re trying to get every last dime from poor people so we can almost afford to have buy-borrow-die oligarchs that never pay a penny in federal taxes.
Technically the standard deduction is the zero tax bracket.
Sales tax as well as VAT are also, by design, regressive taxes.
We turned the planet into a human labour farm.
Don’t vote for anyone, got it
It gets my vote!
No shit, we’re being taken over by literal nazis. This place sucks.
To be fair, a non-insignificant amount of the men under thirty think things are so bad because the Nazis aren’t taking over fast enough.
As do a significant amount of the women. Like yeah, there’s a slight gender gap in trump voters, but it’s not nearly as big as you’d think or hope.
Yeah, ladies under 30, please adopt a never-fuck mindset toward any conservative. Those things tanked the country and deserve 0 pussy.
Edit: Should blanket just be any Trump voter. Knowing who you’re fucking is as important as using STD and pregnancy protection.
Honestly I’m surprised anyone would even want to sleep with a trumper. Like, what’s the appeal? It’s not like they treat women (or anyone, really) well
Usually religious brainwash
Israel ranked 8th in 2025, if I recall correctly. 8th happiest country on earth, higher than my country (UK) or USA. Mind you, in 2024 they were 5th happiest so its not all sunshine and roses for the IDF. For comparison, I could not find rankings for Palestine or Hamas.
Makes me wonder exactly what they were measuring as ‘happiness’, how they measure it, and who they asked!?! They certainly did not ask Israelis opposed to genocide and doing their best to put Netanyahu in gaol - I have Israeli friends like this and they are off the chart miserable right now.
I guess MAGA cultists of all ages, Nazis, Christo-fascists, first-time Gen Z male voters enthralled by the triumph of the Trump, that Alpha Male so adored by the not gay but straight very straight get that right straight as straight as Vance he’s married and she’s not his beard manly Manosphere influncers like that guy whose name I forgot but was accused of rape in Romania, or the Gen Z Betas 100% in bed with the incels (so to speak), plus Tesla customers, and OpenAI employees, plus anyone who shot his balls off to own the libs, are all enjoying peak happiness right now - actually their Venn diagram is just one big happy circle. So cheer up, USA, its not bleak for everyone! /s.
Seriously, this happiness ranking is clickbait bullshit, don’t let it spoil your day.
Sorry guys, I know in my 20s I was still trying to figure out who I wanted to be and figuring out how I aligned with some suit in government was not how I was going to spend my Friday night. Just skip all the media bullshit and start reading about who is voting for what. That will get you to the side you’re on. Theres a lot more to figure out but at the very least do this so you can go vote every chance you get.
The older generations, we aren’t looking out for you, at least enmasse. You’re going to have to form your alliances and hope they keep their end of the deal. Right now the only ones getting anything are billionaires and their subordinates. That just might never change. Maybe you want it that way. I don’t. So good luck.
Vote? There’s no voting. There will be no elections. Nothing to figure out.
Got me there but I did say, “every chance you get.”
I’m over 30 and I’m pretty fuckin’ miserable, too!
But I guess I was actually paying attention to how fucked things have been politically since I was able to start voting pushing nearly 30 years ago now.
In regards to the actual article:
The researchers say they were able to pick up on the distrust by asking whether or not people believed someone would return a lost wallet. Compared to the Nordic countries, people in the U.S. were more likely to underestimate the kindness of others.
“It requires that strangers are to be trusted, that they will go beyond the call of duty and be kind and try and get it back to the rightful owner, or drop it with the police, which means you need to trust the police,” De Neve says. “That single item of the wallet drop is very powerful.”
There’s literally, literally a flip side to this “lost wallet” equation in the US as well. Have you ever been the person who was kind enough to return a lost wallet? Have you also ever been the person who was accused by the person you returned it to of stealing a bunch of things (like cash) out of the wallet? It’s actually a fairly common occurence in the the US. So not only is there distrust in whether or not others will return a wallet, there is a valid distrust by people who find lost wallets that the wallet owner won’t lie about the original contents of the wallet and accuse them of theft anyway. At what point does it just become pointless to bother with returning a wallet at all if you’re going to be accused of a crime because you did the right thing?
Apologies for (slight retch) a reddit link:
https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1j1yqt9/found_a_wallet_with_200_and_i_returned_it_to_its/Bottom line: The US is filled with selfish untrustworthy fucking maniacs.
This lack of trust is literally the main goal of mass media, especially right wing media. When everyone else is your enemy, you won’t work together with them for your own benefit. Instead, you’ll trust the strongman to keep you safe from all the fake danger.
Social media accelerated this by an incredible amount. Today’s America feels like a completely different society from the one I grew up in the 90s.
The only time I found a wallet I returned it to the owner. The owner was suspicious as fuck towards me and treated me like I had stolen it even though everything was still in it. I literally picked it up off the ground, looked at the drivers license, and headed inside the store to see if they could page him and ran into him on the way in. The people I told about it were all pissed towards me for actually returning it and not just stealing the money… It was basically unanimous that I was wrong for doing this and some of these people were friends I thought were good people up until that point. It really fucked up my faith in other people. Next time I’ll just leave it be.
When I find a wallet with no money in it, I put $20 in and give it back. Fuck em.
Have you ever been the person who was kind enough to return a lost wallet? Have you also ever been the person who was accused by the person you returned it to of stealing a bunch of things (like cash) out of the wallet?
You’re saying something. I’ve heard first hand stories about angry wallet owners “shooting the messanger” so to speak. I’m from Germany but the saying “No good deed goes unpunished” rings true in most parts of the world, I think. That’s why you throw a lost wallet into the next letter box and don’t bother any further. At least that’s what you’re supposed to do where I’m from and I doubt any of those wallets ever arrived with their full content but that’s not my problem.
Some years back i was leaving the gym (I live in the US by the by) and I found a debit card. Now the only identifying info on it was the bank associated and the name and such. I wasnt going to take it home and try and track down the person who owned it. So I took it to the associated bank, grabbed a deposit slip and wrote a note on it and dropped in the deposit box. I assume it was returned, but I honestly don’t know. Felt this was the best approach given the circumstances.
There was a time when I was a student that I spent a lot of time near a particular coffee shop, and more than you would typically expect for just studying and the like, since it turned into the place where my friend group basically hung out most of the time.
In any case, it was a decently high traffic area and since I was there a lot I found two wallets and a cellphone over the time I was there a lot.One wallet had an emergency contact I was able to call, think it was their mother, and that I’d be at the coffee shop for a bit. They brought me cookies, and I was thrilled.
Next person just had their phone number, and they acted like I was a creep for saying I had their wallet and would like to give it back to them, so I told them I was leaving it with the cashier and left it at that and was a bit sad, since being told off for trying to be nice is a bummer.
Cellphone was the worst. I called their most recent number and told them what was up (this was clearly before ubiquitous lock screens). Owner called me back in the same number and threatened to call the cops on me so I hung up, powered off the phone and put it back where I found it. Felt sad.Given how it seems like everyone has lost their minds now, I’m not sure I would risk letting someone know I found their stuff. I’d still try to return it because that’s the right thing to do, but I’m not sure if I’d be willing to use my own phone number or anything.
If people will shoot you for using their driveway to turn around I can only imagine what they’d do for a bus pass, student ID and a loyalty punch card for a bakery.You seem like a good person and I’m sorry those assholes treated you like that.
Wow, how dumb and shitty can people be? Crazy.
And the part with dropping a found wallet with the police. We all know they’re going to do fuck all to find the owner.
On that topic, Japan is 100% reliable for returning a dropped wallet.
Oh and it isn’t like Americans over 30 are any happier?
I’m here to assure you that we’re not. The only ones who are happy are boomers who lucked into an impossibly good economy that will never return. They amassed wealth and think it’s because they worked hard while in conditions that only existed because multiple economies were destroyed by war while USA was untouched. And now they continue to hoard power in government and refuse to let younger generations have a seat at the table. Fuck them.
38 and not doing great.
TIL I’m under 30
Boomers maybe?
Most boomers are miserable even if their purported political desires have dominated elections for forty years mostly uninterrupted.
How sad, so much winning and not happy.
Almost zero chance of buying a home or affording rent. Prices going out of control on almost everything. A Nazi in the White House and social media so toxic it melts your mind. The beatings will continue until morale improves. What a terrible place we have created for the next generation.
Also your minimum wage is shit for a “first” world country. $7.25?
In the state with the highest minimum wage in the country, Washington currently at $16.66, you can still work full time and be unable to afford a 300 square foot studio on your own. It’s nigh impossible to work full time at minimum wage in any state in the US and actually be able to get an apartment on your own.
Further, many rentals are increasing required income levels and instead of requiring your monthly income to be three times the cost of rent, they’re pushing for your monthly income being four times the cost of rent. Also, renters insurance has become a requirement, not just a nice thing to have. If you let your renters insurance lapse, you’re breaking your lease.
16.66 for min wage but all the jobs are part-time with no scheduling sanity so holding two jobs is difficult to impossible. Anyone realizing this isn’t an accident?
dude…americans OVER 30 are miserable too
It is normal for older people to be jaded. Having the young, idealistic age start out life jaded and miserable really drags the average down.
I was miserable when I was younger too, I’m just really good at it now.
It is normal for older people to be jaded
google “is ought”
Why?
What’s “is ought” bro? You can’t just say random stuff and expect us to finish your thought, elucidate.
Gee can’t see why. We should probably tax them more and deregulate billionaires more
/s
Here you go. You forgot this.
