Uncertainty, Not Poverty, Behind Recession Blues

Americans are worrying more than they were last year, and happiness is down while sadness is up, writes Daniel Gilbert in the New York Times. But it’s not the lightness of our pocketbooks that’s weighing on us; it’s the uncertainty of the times. While most of us still have more than our grandparents ever did, the possibility of losing it makes us sick.

“People feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur,” Gilbert says. For instance, Canadian researchers found a group told it was likely to develop Huntington’s disease was happier a year later than a group that learned the possibility but not the risk. “Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds,” he concludes. “It’s a matter of insufficient certainty.” (More financial crisis stories.)