With communities and businesses racing to reopen, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant problems. Not only are we experiencing the financial impacts of mass unemployment, but mass loneliness has begun to take its toll on Americans’ wellbeing as social distancing and working from home drain their social reserves. In an interview with McKinsey, former US surgeon general Vivek Murthy, MD, COVID-19 is disconnecting us further from our human relationships potentially causing a “social recession, with profound consequences for our health, for our productivity in the workplace, for how our kids do in school.”
In a recent study tracking how American adults are responding to COVID-19, NORC at the University of Chicago found that the public’s happiness is at a five-decade low; despite financial satisfaction reaching an all-time high of 80%. According to the data, 23% of Americans said they are not too happy–a 10% jump since 2018 and the highest percentage on record since 1972. NORC also found that 50% of Americans said they felt isolated at least some of the time in the past four weeks, while less than a quarter of the public said the same in 2018.
