The Origins of Happiness

Work and Unemployment

Conclusion

If it is important to make work more enjoyable, it is even

more important to make sure that those who want it have

it. Unemployment is one of the most bruising of all expe-

riences. It cannot be adapted to, and it leaves psychological

scars. Public policy should aim not only to stabilize unem-

ployment but to make it permanently lower. That is the

most important objective for economic policy. But it is time

to move beyond economics and into people’s private lives.