Great point. This gets at the impossible endogeneity of the subject. Are the jobless miserable because they're poor, lonely, bored, or distraught? Well, perhaps they are lonely and bored
because they can't afford to socialize. And perhaps they're distraught because they're failing to live up to a cultural expectation that, with more wealth and more redistribution, wouldn't exist. Etc etc.
One last thing, apropos of nothing except my stream-of-consciousness typing and the feeling that somebody might bring it up here, is that some people have pointed out to me on Twitter that I should have studied students or retired people, who both seem pretty happy and don't work. I don't accept the comparison. Students essentially have a job with school and a camaraderie on campus that the unemployed have lost when they lose the water cooler. (It is, perhaps, important to note that people choose to go to school in order to find a job, and what happens to college attendance if the expectation of full-time work takes a hit?) Retirees, for their part, do seem happy overall, but those with comfortable retirements are living on savings that they earned through work and they have the pride of having worked to earn their retirement. This is one of the hardest things about imagining the demise of a full-time workforce: Where else could this sort of pride come from?
One last thing, apropos of nothing except my stream-of-consciousness typing and the feeling that somebody might bring it up here, is that some people have pointed out to me on Twitter that I should have studied students or retired people, who both seem pretty happy and don't work. I don't accept the comparison. Students essentially have a job with school and a camaraderie on campus that the unemployed have lost when they lose the water cooler. (It is, perhaps, important to note that people choose to go to school in order to find a job, and what happens to college attendance if the expectation of full-time work takes a hit?) Retirees, for their part, do seem happy overall, but those with comfortable retirements are living on savings that they earned through work and they have the pride of having worked to earn their retirement. This is one of the hardest things about imagining the demise of a full-time workforce: Where else could this sort of pride come from?