New national well-being data highlights the negative impact of unemployment

New statistics on national well-being show:

• Average life satisfaction in the UK is 7.4 out of 10
• Unemployed people are much less happy than those in work (average 6.3)
• People who live on their own report lower than average well-being (6.9)
• Disabled people report lower than average life satisfaction  (7.0)
• A quarter of UK adults are very happy (8 or above) but 1 in 6 are not satisfied with their lives (5 or below).

The ONS stresses that ‘most people rate their well-being at 7 or more out of 10’, but a closer examination of the data reveals unhappiness looks likely to rise alongside unemployment.

In the same week the government set out its plans to make further public sector job cuts, ONS found that those currently out of work rate their own well-being as 6.4 out of 10, compared to an average of 7.4. Overall UK well-being is therefore likely to fall in line with an increasing unemployment rate in the coming years.

Juliet Michaelson, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Well-being at nef, said: “We welcome the release of this data as an important step in the government’s programme to put subjective well-being at the heart of policy making. Once we are able to start tracking levels of population well-being over time, it will be easier to link them to policy decisions. The government needs to do more to address well-being issues and allocate resources accordingly.”

Charles Seaford, Head of the Centre for Well-being at nef, said “An average score of 7.4 makes it difficult to claim that most people are happy with their lives. It masks the big differences between people in different circumstances, and also overlooks the current trends in unemployment, which mean that more people will be suffering low well-being.”