We remember 1776 for many reasons.
Certainly the event you associate this year with is the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Rebels against the crown of England put pen to paper to claim rights to self-government, life, liberty, and to pursue happiness.
Four months earlier, though, the most famous text in economic history was published: Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. This book laid the groundwork for the entirety of the field of economics up until the present day. Smith’s treatments of division of labor, productivity, and market economics are the groundwork for how we understand economics today.
Less famous than these two texts was a third published that year, an anonymously-published pamphlet titled A Fragment on Government. Within this text, then legal theorist Jeremy Bentham put forth his theory of good government.
“It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong…the obligation to minister to general happiness, [is] an obligation paramount to and inclusive of every other.”
Today, the ideals in the Declaration of Independence are echoed in the Constitution and debated by legal scholars daily within classrooms and every year to courts across the country. Questions of these ideals often become the province of the Supreme Court of the United States, one of the most powerful legal bodies in the history of the world.
Smith’s economic ideals reverberate through government, too, in technical workings through benefit-cost analysis required for federal decisionmaking. It also influences a powerful, non-partisan body of economists who have broad latitude to nudge the national economy, the Federal Reserve of the United States.
Yet, despite Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration about the importance of the pursuit of happiness, Bentham’s statement has not taken root in the government of the United States of America.
No federal office specializes in subjective well-being. The United States Census Bureau does not collect data on subjective well-being the way the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics does. This means that policymakers do not have access to happiness data within the United States, even as the United States increasingly lags comparable countries in international happiness studies.
So what would a good happiness infrastructure for the United States look like? I propose three low-hanging fruit the United States could grasp to make happiness a serious part of U.S. policy.
1. Collect happiness data in the American Community Survey
The U.S. Census Bureau already has an annual survey that gives representative data down to geographies of about 100,000 people. Adding a cantril ladder question or, better, four questions mimicking those asked by the U.K., would give researchers a wealth of knowledge they could use to understand happiness trends across the country, across time, and across demographics.
2. Report annually on subjective well-being
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Poverty Reports are some of the most useful reports put out by the U.S. federal government every year. They give regular updates on estimates of the extent of poverty in the United States and were key to explaining the impact of the 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion on poverty in the United States. Regular reports on happiness in the United States would be valuable information for the media, the public, and policymakers.
3. Appoint a happiness economist to the Council of Economic Advisers
The federal Council of Economic Advisers gives the President of the United States ongoing advice about the impacts of her policies on the U.S. economy. If the President is to understand the impacts of her policy decisions on the happiness of U.S. citizens, she needs an expert who can give her unbiased analysis of this topic. This can start with a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.
These are just three first steps. Ideally, the impact of public policy on happiness will be evaluated and happiness analysis can be incorporated into analysis in the Congressional Budget office and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
We have a long way to go to make Jefferson’s dream of a country centering the pursuit of happiness an ideal. But there are easy first steps to take if we wish.