Jobs, Less Inflation Drive Down Misery By Marilyn Geewaxis

“It is Expensive to be Poor”, a work by Barbara Ehrenreich, published in The Atlantic January 13, 2014 discusses the trials and tribulations faced by struggling families. One may ask themselves why Ehrenreich published this article in The Atlantic, who is she trying to reach? According to stateofthemedia.org, The Atlantic’s average reader is 53 years old and has a household income of $88,000 per year. Ehrenreich’s works are often opinion pieces related to social injustice, women’s rights, healthcare, and economic injustice. With this information I can infer the audience are middle- aged, middle class women who are likely to empathize with the “struggling heroines” mentioned in this work. Ehrenreich wrote this article to educate her audience on the lifestyle of the poor in “the wealthiest country in the world”. She uses rhetorical devices such as

I was raised by my hardworking grandmother and aunt who both taught me the values of hard work and making an honest living. As a child, I would read about the lives of women who fought long and hard for the right to earn money for themselves and gain recognition for their accomplishments. After reading their stories, I would be filled with a sense of pride and relief. Pride, because my grandmother and aunt were continuing the legacy of those women and relief; that I was growing up in a time where I didn’t have to worry about getting sneered at for choosing to pursue a career. Because I was a child, I figured everybody had moved on from the old outdated beliefs about women in the work place.

Albert Ellis was one of the most influential psychologists in American history, who lived between September 27, 1913 and July 24, 2007. In junior high, Ellis had his sights set to become a great novelist. His original plan was to study accounting in high school and college, retire around the age of 30, and write without having to worry about finances. Unfortunately, the Great Depression stopped Ellis from furthering his dream. However, he managed to finish college with a degree in Business Administration from the City University of New York in 1934. In Ellis’ spare time, he wrote short stories, plays, comics, essays, and novels. At the age of 28, he had written over two dozen manuscripts, but he could not get them published. It was then Ellis realized that his future did not involve being a novelist

Heady, Wooden, and Muffels (2008) focused on how economics contributes more to happiness than previously thought. It uses the findings of household panel studies conducted in Australia, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia to reassess the accepted view of psychology and economics that money has little to do with happiness. It challenges the view of the Easterlin Paradox concept, and uses the household panel study data to suggest that the relationship between money and happiness has more of a correlation than we think. Various techniques such as surveys, mathematical equations, and sampling were described in detail to show how the household panel studies measured life satisfaction. Through the findings of these studies, Heady,

The subject of this paper is the age-old question, “Does Money Buy Happiness”. On the surface, this question appears to be an easy one. Happiness however, is a subjective item. To better answer this, several points must be analyzed such as, “What is happiness?”, “How is it measured?” etc. To better streamline this process, a research question was developed:

In the article “THE ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS", John Ikerd review the ideas within economic history and the effects of economic on our happiness. I think that while all of us want something so much that we think that if we own it; it will make us happier. We can see that advertisements of gadgets such as Apple products: iPod and especially iPhone and iMacs computers try to sell us the illusion that buying their products would make us special and unique. Psychological research shows that happiness that comes from buying a new product is only temporary and lasts only for a short time. In addition, statistics show that 1 in 10 Americans will suffer from depression, which means we became a nation of unhappy people despite all the wealth we have. I

According to Csikszentmihalyi, the problem with happiness exists in affluent countries today because people are living in much richer conditions and living longer, but still people are not satisfied with all the improvements in material wealth because they are always wanting more. The indirect evidence comes from the national statistics of social pathology that gives evidence showing that violent crimes, family breakdown, and psychosomatic complaints have increased. The direct evidence comes from the studies of happiness that psychologists and other social scientists have started to pursue thru surveys about the relationship between material objects and subjective well-being. The evidence showed that having more money to spend does not bring

Life is difficult. Sometimes life’s difficulties can cause people to become disheartened and depressed. At times the struggles of life obscure one’s goals and one’s blessings. Most people do not enjoy being in a state of prolonged sadness, though momentary pain and sadness, are important in human life. Indeed, since Aristotle most of Western philosophy has held that “all men agree that” the goal of life “is happiness.” Now, what happiness means varies from person to person. Aristotle held that the “contemplative life” is “happiness in the highest sense.” The early Utilitarians held that happiness meant maximising pleasure and minimising pain. Henry Hazlitt’s system of utilitarianism holds that happiness is to “maximize our satisfactions in the long run” foster by “social cooperation.” The definitions of happiness could fill entire volumes and still fail to account for one’s personal view of happiness. Furthermore, it must be noted that there are some that do not believe happiness is the ultimate goal of life or even a subordinate goal of life. However, most want to happy; in whatever way they define it.

Happiness Industry by William Davies explores the history of capitalism, economics and psychology and the impact of the politics on the well-being due to low-level mental health. Over the past years, there has been an increase emphasis on what happiness really is. Is happiness a subjective or objective feeling? According to Davies (2015), “Happiness itself may not be an objective, physical phenomenon but it occurs as a result of various sources of pleasure, which have a firm, physiological basis”. (p, 18)

Summary: Governments from various places around the world are now using psychology and the economics of happiness to influence public policy. This was facilitated by the report by Stiglitz et al. which epitomized a “push for policies to explicitly promote increases in survey measures of wellbeing as a major social objective”. Consequently, the authors measured personal or social welfare using happiness data. Because of the scarcity of resources, improving happiness will reallocate resources away from other desires or objectives. Interestingly, recent research suggests that there’s a distinction between happiness and utility. The goal of this paper is to show that welfare economics doesn’t justify happiness maximisation as a policy goal.

During periods when the GDP rate shows economic wellbeing, it does not consider how people are feeling, and their quality of life. For instance, GDP measures production increases and worker income increases positively, however if these increases stem from longer work hours and less relaxation and enjoyment, this negatively impacts quality of life. If this component is considered, these current status increased tensions and stresses might reveal unsustainable productivity levels – and this condition is important to recognize. Furthermore, the GDP does not disseminate whether families are spending more on

In our everyday lives we are faced with many issues and problems that question some of the decisions or choices we make. Some of our actions bring about happiness and some promotes the reverse of such actions. According to the theory of utilitarianism which is a part of normative ethics states, “best moral action is the one that maximizes utility.” In other words it relates to the well-being and the state of happiness in an individual. The famous British philosopher John Stuart Mill also argued that, “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong in proportion as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (pg. 5). Each individual rate happiness in accordance to what its definition is or their interpretation of happiness. Globally, “happiness” can be defined as pleasure in the absence of pain.

Unemployment has always been something that Americans have worried about since the great depression in which one in every four people was unemployed. High unemployment has an impact on every one even those whom are still currently employed. For example if the unemployment rate is particular high then even those with jobs get worried. Unemployment is also separated in to distinct categories base on which group is the focus of the study. The categories can be by race, age or location, for example the unemployment rate of those between the age of sixty and sixty-five could be compared those between the ages of thirty and thirty-five. These categories allow economist to see which groups are the best and which groups are worst off. One group

If we look at this issue in general as a worldwide problem, unemployment is a vastly growing issue worldwide. It can be very damaging for a country’s economy and as well as very hurtful for a country’s reputation. Unemployment describes the health of an economy, the higher the rate of unemployment the worse is a country’s economy. Many people actively search for jobs in today’s world and when unemployment rate is high they are unable to find jobs that will provide them with decent paychecks.

In times of economic crisis and employment, you do not have a lot of options to work. Unemployment increased and even though you do not like your job, you are bored and uninterested, you cannot stop.