Today is the International Day of Happiness. And believe it or not, Americans are fairly happy in their lives, relatively speaking. That said, things have started to wear on us in recent years.
Every year since 2012, Gallup has put out a “World Happiness Report,” which ranks how people in more than 140 countries evaluate the quality of their lives.
And for the NINTH year in a row, Finland is #1.
Iceland is #2, Denmark is #3, and the rest of the Top 10 is: Costa Rica . . . Sweden . . . Norway . . . the Netherlands . . . Israel . . . Luxembourg . . . and Switzerland. (So the FIVE major Nordic countries are ALL in the Top 6.)
Israel might seem strange here, in 2026, but the study is based on surveys from the previous THREE years, and Israel has previously ranked even higher.
The U.S. is #23 out of 147 countries, which isn’t terrible . . . but it’s almost our lowest rank since they’ve been doing this. The low-point came just last year, when America was 24th.
This year, the U.S. is just below Germany, Austria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia . . . and just ahead of Poland, Canada, Taiwan, and the U.K.
For what it’s worth, America’s neighbor Mexico is at #12.
Overall, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and Zimbabwe are the countries where people are LEAST satisfied and happy with their lives. They finished just below Botswana, Yemen, and Lebanon.
[ World Happiness ]