Asians have the highest self-reported sense of well-being, according to the XM Institute at Qualtrics, which has tracked U.S. consumer sentiment for more than a decade. Consumers rate how healthy, financially secure and happy they are to get an overall sense of their quality of life.

The latest data provides insight into how consumers have navigated through the COVID pandemic and the ways it impacted their physical health, financial health as the economy underwent rapid changes, and overall happiness. Asian and Caucasian respondents report higher overall well-being compared with 2019, before COVID, while African Americans and Hispanics trail their pre-pandemic levels.

Asians have an overall well-being rating of 64%, up from 61% in 2021. After a significant decline in 2020, Asians have reported increasing well-being over the past couple years, with notably large gains in happiness and financial security.

African Americans were the only other racial group to report increased well-being, rising to 60% from 58% a year ago, driven by improvements to their financial security (although less than half say they are financially stable).

Despite a year-over-year decline in each category, Caucasians have the second-highest rating for overall well-being. They are the happiest group, with 72% saying they are typically happy.

Hispanic well-being declined for another year, and is now 10 percentage points lower than Asian well-being. The share of Hispanic people saying they are typically happy fell 7 percentage points over the last year to 61%, lower than any other group. They also rated their financial stability lowest among demographic groups, with only 45% saying they are financially secure.

Young Americans Have the Lowest Sense of Well-Being

Across all age groups, financial security is lower than healthiness and happiness. Less than half of Americans between 18-24 and 45-64 say they feel financially secure.

Gen Z consumers are much less happy than older generations - just 53% of 18-24 year olds say they’re happy. The next closest age groups are 25-34 year olds and 45-54 year olds; 68% of these groups say they’re happy.

Young Americans are also least likely to say they are healthy, while those ages 35 to 54 are the healthiest.

The effect of such low individual ratings is an overall well-being score of 52% for young Americans, lower than all other age groups. 

Methodology

This data comes from XM Institute’s U.S. consumer studies, and results are analyzed based on self-described ethnicity. We set sample quotas to be demographically representative to the U.S. population for gender, age, income, and region, in addition to ethnicity. The 2022 data comes from 10,000 respondents in our XM Institute Q3 2022 U.S. Consumer Study. 

Read more about the study at XM Institute: https://www.xminstitute.com/blog/us-wellbeing-fluctuates/