It's Wednesday, December 17th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day.

The show saying thank you to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for deciding,

you know what? I'm going to talk to a writer from Vanity Fair 11 times this year and just tell

him everything I'm thinking about President Donald Trump's quote, alcoholics personality and

Elon Musk's drug use and, oh,

by the way, Trump being in the Epstein files, nothing's off limits. I'm sure this will all go great.

It did.

On today's show, unemployment surges to its highest rate in four years, which is sad.

And the deadline to extend affordable care acts subsidies draws dangerously near.

Also, very sad.

But let's start with happiness?

I know. It's a weird topic to talk about right now when there is so

much to be justifiably unhappy about. As I said, unemployment is up. Two-thirds of Americans have

recently struggled with the rising cost of groceries. And the president of the United States is

occupied his time attempting to start a land war in Venezuela,

posting on the Internet and blowing up the east wing of the White House.

Times are tough.

It's no wonder, then, that the Common Good Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank,

found that the U.S. fell from 11th place to 24th place in global happiness rankings between 2012 and 2025.

More and more Americans are deeply, profoundly unhappy, especially younger Americans.

So, what do we do about it? And I mean that. What can we do as individuals and as a society to be happier? Besides flipping the House and Senate, believe me, I got there before you did.

To find out, I spoke to Michael Plant.

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