Editor's Note: Gallup re-estimated its Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and Life Evaluation Index data from January 2008 to April 2009 to address context effects that Gallup discovered after the data were originally published.
The Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index tracks daily the percentage of Americans who, reflecting on the day before they were surveyed, say they experienced a lot of happiness and enjoyment without a lot of stress and worry versus the percentage who say they experienced daily worry and stress without a lot of happiness and enjoyment. Daily results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 500 national adults; margin of error is ±5 percentage points.
Gallup tracks daily the percentage of employed Americans who, based on what they know or have seen, report that their company or employer is hiring new people and expanding the size of its workforce, not changing the size of its workforce, or letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce. Daily results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,700 working adults; Margin of error is ±3 percentage points.
Americans’ collective level of happiness or enjoyment without a lot of stress or worry fell to a new low of 35% on Thursday, Dec. 11, the same day the U.S. Labor Department announced a 26-year high in new jobless claims and the auto bailout bill failed in the Senate.