As an older person (52 y/o) who remembers a time when a lot more people I know (of all ages) were optimistic about the future, I believe the major factor leading to generalized anxiety currently is not about one event, but all the additive effects of massive and ever increasing wealth inequality piling up year over year.

That combined with little to no hope that either political party will do a damn thing to fix it (Democrats at least have some politicians who actually want to, but they are stymied by their own leadership, never mind the problem of not having any real national level political power currently).

Ok, but how did those things change between 2023 and 2024? The same party was in power and there wasn't a single monolithic wealth grab that happened that year.

Agreed. Even as someone only on the tail end of the millennial generation, the total disappearance of hope in the past 10-15 years (but especially in the last 5) has been palpable. There's a tweet that's been floating around recently that says something along the lines of "basically nobody under 40 expects good things to happen ever again", and I think that sums it up pretty accurately.

But that isn't new. Housing has been unaffordable for anybody who wasn't alive in the '70 for at least 15 years now. Healthcare has been a clusterfluck that it's been a major talking point in at least six consecutive presidential elections.

As far as the data presented in the chart goes, 'Happiness' is shown steadily climbing for a few years before '23, then it takes a massive dip in '23 then in '24 it declines but at a significantly slower rate than '23. Unless the way they measure 'happiness' is inaccurate and unreliable (in which case this whole article is garbage) there has to be an event that correlates with that.