Americans may be pursuing happiness but many are not achieving it, according to the latest World Happiness Report, which gives the U.S. its lowest ranking ever, behind countries like Canada and Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
The U.S. is still ahead of most countries — it ranks 24th out of 147th, just ahead of Germany. But Americans’ happiness still lags the Nordic nations that typically occupy the top spots, and it fell a notch lower than last year, when it ranked 23rd.
The top 10 happiest countries for 2025 are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Norway, Israel, Luxembourg and Mexico. The least happy country was Afghanistan.
The authors of the report cited the importance of family size and social connections to happiness, with factors such as the frequency of dining alone being associated with lower levels of wellbeing. Strong social connectedness is one reason that Mexico climbed into the top 10 this year, while America continued its descent on the list.
Mexico, like Europe, benefits from larger household size, which contributes to stronger social connections. In contrast, the U.S., has a record number of people living alone — and thus more people likely to be eating meals alone.
According to the report, “In 2023, roughly 1 in 4 Americans reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day – an increase of 53% since 2003. Dining alone has become more prevalent for every age group, but especially for young people.”
And it’s the unhappiness of young Americans that is, in large part, contributing to America’s place in the survey, the report says.
Why are young Americans unhappy?
During the pandemic, happiness among young adults declined and never rebounded, the report said. “Young people in North America and Western Europe now report the lowest wellbeing among all age groups,” the authors wrote.
In 2023, half of U.S. college students reported “significant loneliness” even though college is a time that young adults typically build lasting relationships with peers. “In the United States, 18% of young adults (aged 18–29) reported not having anyone that they feel close to,” the report said, adding that young adults in the U.S. also report having lower quality of social connections than other age groups.
The decline in social connection is directly linked to happiness since people report a higher sense of well-being after interacting with other people, and strong relationships also provide support during difficult times.
In a panel discussion about the report, held at Gallup’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Russell Shaw, head of school at Georgetown Day School, said that because the world feels scary, parents are often anxious and sometimes contribute to their children staying isolated, thinking that they’re safer at home.
But, Shaw said, “We are overindexing the risk of what’s happening in the world and we are underindexing the risk for being isolated and being engaged with technology.”
Why eating together matters
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University, said at the event that the seemingly trivial question of whether people were eating alone turned out to be a powerful indicator of how socially connected people are, and there are vast differences around the world. Out of 14 possible lunch and dinners in a week, for example, in some countries, only 3 or 4 are shared with others, and in others, the average is 11 or 12.
“You’re starting to get a hint of why the Latin American countries, specifically Mexico and Costa Rica, are moving up (the list) — they’re punching above their weight in happiness, not because of GDP or life expectancy, but because of social ties and the quality of them that they have.”
Sharing meals turns out to be as important as employment status and relative income in explaining life satisfaction, De Neve said. The association is strong for everyone, but even stronger for people below the age of 30.
“Youth today in America are way more likely to be spending their lunches and dinners alone, and that’s really really disconcerting,” he said, likening the change to an acceleration of the trends Robert Putnam wrote about in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.”
“Those trends have only gotten worse since,” De Neve said, adding that social isolation is a driver of political polarization. “It’s absolutely essential to try and get people back around the table together because that is vital for our individual and collective wellbeing.”
How can Americans become happier?
In another panel discussion about how to address the troubling trends that the report examines, happiness scholars Karen Guggenheim and Gretchen Rubin talked about strategies that people can employ to be protective of their own wellbeing, and that of their families.
Guggenheim said that a holistic approach to becoming more socially connected — and ultimately more happy — should include “micro moments of connection” — which can be as small as asking strangers for direction or making small talk. “I think we forget about that moment of spontaneous connection,” she said, noting that people wrongly think that we’re more connected than ever because of technology when actually the reverse is true.
Americans, in particular, also tend to underestimate the empathy of other people, the report says, because of increasing levels of distrust. This can lead to people hesitating to engage with others, despite the proven benefits of social interaction to our mental and physical health.
“The challenge is ... what are you going to do?” Guggenheim, the co-founder of the World Happiness Summmit, said. “We are at a point where our youth is not doing well. And we can fix this. It is incredibly empowering that we can actually do something about this. .. Our patient is bleeding out. Let’s go in there and triage and build the societies that we all want to live in, and those are happier societies.”
Rubin, the author of books that include “The Happiness Project” and “Happier at Home,” said that while there are things that can be done on a societal level, it’s also important that people — and especially young people — know that they themselves have agency to take action.
“When in doubt about how to spend our precious time, energy or money to be happier, you’re always making a good decision if you spend it on relationships,” she said.
“So if you’re thinking, should I make the effort to go out and go to that meeting, should I spend the money to buy the $10 ticket to go to that student show, or whatever it is — it takes time, energy and money to build these relationships but it is something that sets us up for a happy life, and as mentioned, it also makes us healthier, more productive, more creative, better leaders, better team members.” She added: “In the end, so much of our happiness does come from our relationships.”
The happiness ranking is compiled based on Gallup’s interviews with 1,000 respondents in each country who are asked to assess their wellbeing on a scale called the Cantril Ladder. The question doesn’t use the words “happiness” or “wellbeing, but instead asks respondents to imagine a ladder with steps numbered zero to 10, the top of the ladder being “the best possible life for you” and the bottom being the worst. The respondents are then asked, “On which step of the ladder would you say your personally feel you stand at this time?”
The annual report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, which partners with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.