Personal Happiness
Americans' tendency to rate local aspects of various issues more positively than they do national aspects of the same issues has long fascinated social scientists. Local schools are rated more positively than schools across the country, personal healthcare is rated more positively than the nation's healthcare system in general, and congressional representatives from one's local district are rated more positively than "most members of Congress."
Nowhere is this more evident than in the comparison of Americans' ratings of their satisfaction with the way their personal lives are going and their ratings of the way things are going in general across the United States.
Satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States is now at 35%. As Assistant Gallup Poll Editor Joe Carroll wrote in a recent analysis: "Satisfaction was highest in February 1999, when 71% of Americans said they were satisfied and 26% said they were dissatisfied. The low point for this measure came in July 1979 -- only 12% of Americans were satisfied at that time, while more than 8 in 10 adults (84%) were dissatisfied." So, that's a range of 59 percentage points in general satisfaction over the last quarter-century.
But it's a vastly different situation when we ask Americans this question: "In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time?" to which 85% of Americans respond affirmatively.
There has been little change in this personal satisfaction measure over time. The highest level recorded since Gallup first began asking this question in 1979 was 88% in December 2003. The lowest reading was 73% in July 1979. That's a range of only 15 percentage points, compared with the aforementioned 59-point spread in the national satisfaction measure.