Economic anxiety can increase due to loss of household income or decreased purchasing power, causing affected individuals to self-report having more issues with societal structure and a lower quality of life.
The reason why there is a positive correlation between the increase in smoking and economic anxiety is because agonists of nicotine receptors enhances mood and cognition.
One reason behind the increase in the level of pain could be the fact that economic anxiety triggers feelings of lack of control as the foundation of human motivation is built mainly on having stability in life (Kelley, 1971; Landau, Kay & Whitson, 2015).
To further add on, economic anxiety can damage one's self-esteem, impair cognitive functioning and people become more prone to various illness such as heart diseases and psychiatric disorders.
Therefore, raising the income of all doesn't necessarily mean greater happiness if other people belonging from the same reference group also have a similar salary (Dorn et al., 2007, Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2005, Luttmer, 2005, Weinzierl, 2005).
[12] On the other hand, absolute utility theory presumes that higher income can fulfil more needs indicating a positive correlation with an increase in happiness (Veenhoven, 1991).
How individual answers the questions in the Marketplace-Edison Research Poll determines their Economic Anxiety Index, which is a number ranging from 1-100 designed to represent a person's stress related to the economy.
[14] The research poll and Index center on 12 questions regarding job security, savings and expenses, and general financial anxiety.
As the well-being of future generation depends on the inheritance of physical capital stock, assets, natural and human resources to build a sense of society.
[26] Recently, several research papers have shown that the abrupt distortion and chaos caused around the world due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in levels of depression, anxiety, suicide and other symptoms of stress.
One survey indicated that individuals tend to feel anxious if their workloads decrease or increase because the change in work routines causes stress and pressure.
Moreover, a growing number of COVID cases in a country induces distress, dissatisfaction and anxiety as this will result in a longer period of lockdown which will slow down the economic growth.
Therefore, policy-makers and governments are trying to provide full support like increasing mental health services, financial packages, loans, expanding unemployment insurance, etc.
Firstly, individuals seek biased information towards immigrants and rely heavily on threatening news which further adds to their economic anxiety.