Who Is Thriving in America? The Answers May Surprise You

Researchers looked at data from over 38,000 adults across the United States to understand who is thriving and who is struggling. They focused on three things: age, education, and whether someone was born in the U. S.

Challenging the myth of carefree youth, young adults today report higher rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

or moved here from another country. What they found paints a surprising picture. Older adults — even into their 80s — reported higher happiness, life satisfaction, mental health, optimism, and financial security than younger adults. They also felt more socially connected, less lonely, and less depressed.

The one area where older adults struggled was physical health: pain and health limitations increased steadily with age. But emotionally and socially, older Americans were doing much better. Young adults under 30 reported the lowest levels of well-being across nearly every measure — more loneliness, more anxiety, more depression, and less sense of purpose. This is a shift from past decades, when well-being used to dip in midlife and rise again in older age. Now, it seems to climb steadily from young adulthood onward.

Education told a similar story: more schooling tended to go hand in hand with better health, happiness, and financial security. But there were surprises. People with the least formal education reported the highest levels of hope and social connectedness. And when it came to immigration, people born outside the U. S. reported more optimism, a stronger sense of purpose, greater trust in others, and even better physical health than those born here — a pattern researchers call the 'immigrant paradox.'