The United States has fallen to its lowest ever happiness ranking, with loneliness during Joe Biden’s presidency and a rise in suicide and substance abuse blamed for the slump.

America fell to 24th place in the World Happiness Report, its lowest score since the survey was first published in 2012.

The report said: “The increasing number of people who eat alone is one reason for declining well-being in the United States.”

In 2023, roughly one in four Americans reported eating all their meals alone the previous day.

The authors of the report said the number of people dining alone in the US had increased by 53 per cent in the last two decades and noted that sharing meals “is strongly linked with well-being”.

The report also stated that the United States was one of only a few countries to see a rise of so-called “deaths of despair” – from suicide or substance abuse – at a time when those deaths are declining in the majority of countries.

The report surveyed people worldwide in 2022-2024, while Joe Biden was president.

The United Kingdom, at position 23, was given its lowest ranking in nine years.

Finland ranked as the world’s happiest country for the eighth year in a row, with Finns and experts thanking its grand lakes and strong welfare system for boosting its mood.

Afghanistan, plagued by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, once again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world.

Nordic countries all stayed among the 10 happiest, with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden trailing Finland, which slightly extended its lead over runner-up Denmark.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica and Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, at the sixth and 10th spots.

Israel placed at eighth

Despite the war with Hamas, Israel came in at eighth.

The happiness ranking is based on a three-year average of individuals’ self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, as well as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

Frank Martela, an assistant professor specialised in well-being and happiness research at Aalto University, told AFP: “It seems that Finnish people are relatively satisfied with their lives.

“Democracy is functioning well, we have free elections, free speech, low levels of corruption and all of these have shown to predict higher levels of national well-being.”

He added that the Nordic countries also all have relatively strong welfare systems – with parental leave, unemployment benefits and mostly universal healthcare – which also contribute to higher levels of well-being on average.

Eveliina Ylitolonen, a 23-year-old student in Helsinki, said she believed that Finns’ focus on enjoying beautiful nature could help explain the consistently high level of happiness in the Nordic country, which is known for its deep forests and over 160,000 lakes.

She told AFP: “Nature is an important part of this happiness.”

This year, the authors of the happiness report said new evidence indicates that engaging in acts of generosity and believing in the kindness of others are “significant predictors of happiness, even more so than earning a higher salary”.

They also noted that in general “people are too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities”, and that “the return rate of lost wallets is much higher than people expect”.