Happiness & Life Satisfaction

A 47-nation survey finds that as economic growth has surged in much of Latin America, East Europe and Asia over the past five years, people are expressing greater satisfaction with their personal lives, family incomes and national conditions. The picture is different in most advanced nations, where growth has been less robust and citizen satisfaction has changed little since 2002.

Rising Incomes a Big Reason, But Not the Only One

Most Americans are moderately upbeat about their family's financial prospects in the coming year, with 57% expecting some improvement in their financial situation and another 10% expecting a lot of improvement.

Since 2000, people have become far more pessimistic and partisan in their views about the country's future -- and their own.

As economists and politicians debate whether there is less mobility in the U.S. now than in the past, a new Pew survey finds that many among the public are seeing less progress in their own lives.

Americans are generally satisfied with their own jobs but believe that wages, benefits, job security and employer loyalty have deteriorated over the past generation for most workers, a new survey finds.

Hispanics in general, and recent immigrants in particular, are more inclined than blacks or whites to take an upbeat view about one of the most enduring tenets of the American dream -- that each generation will do better in life than the one that preceded it.

The idea that each generation of children will grow up to be better off than the one that preceded it has always been a part of the American dream.

Americans are eating more but enjoying it less. Just 39% of adults say they enjoy eating "a great deal," down from the 48% who said the same in a Gallup survey in 1989.

Overall, about a quarter of all adults in this country say they always feel rushed, while a majority of Americans sometimes feel rushed and about a quarter almost never feel rushed.