Americans are as unhappy as ever. Could ‘a happiness-segregated society by marriage’ be why? | Fortune0

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• August 10, 2026

For nearly 50 years, one number barely moved. Every year or two, the General Social Survey asks Americans how happy they are, and for decades the balance between “very happy” and “not too happy” held steady, from 1972 through 2018. But as soon as the pandemic hit, it came cratering down. Sam Peltzman, an economist