The share of American workers who report they’re “thriving” in their lives has dropped to a record low, while the proportion who are “struggling” has surged back to a record high, according to the latest data from Gallup.
The report, released on Nov. 19, highlights a troubling shift in life evaluations among the U.S. workforce, marking a steady decline in well-being indicators over the past four years. In particular, the share of American workers who said they were “suffering,” 4 percent (from a survey in August), was twice as high compared with any year of the Trump presidency.
Gallup’s survey, which first started tracking life evaluation by U.S. employees in 2009, shows that the share of workers who said they were “thriving” hit its peak at 61 percent in both 2016 and 2017. It started declining in 2019 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and, aside from a brief rebound in January 2021 as hopes grew for a loosening of restrictions, the downward trend continued. As of August 2024, only 50 percent of U.S. employees rated their lives highly enough to be classified as thriving….