Eighty-six percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal lives.
Bottom Line
Strong majorities of Americans have consistently reported satisfaction with their personal lives over the past four decades. But more recently, the degree of satisfaction has varied, particularly by political party and race. Changes in satisfaction often reflect respondents’ political lenses, such as a buoyancy in Republicans’ views of their lives under a president of their own political party, as in 2007 and this year — while Democrats’ ratings have become depressed since Trump took office. Americans who approve of the incumbent president’s performance are generally more likely to be very satisfied with their personal lives.
Gallup has studied hundreds of countries around the world over more than a decade, and has found that decreases in happiness have often coincided with major change events, such as Trump’s election, the Brexit vote in the U.K. or the Arab Spring. While the life satisfaction question may not measure happiness per se, it is one that leaders will want to monitor.