State of the ‘Union’: Young Americans Eye the Exit Door

Friday, November 7, 2025.

At JFK’s passport office, the line is longer than the security checkpoint.
A young couple scrolls Lisbon apartments on Zillow; a student behind them rehearses her French visa interview. It isn’t wanderlust — it’s a quiet and subtle evacuation.

According to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America survey, nearly two-thirds of adults under 35 have considered moving abroad this year.

Among young Americans who are parents, 53% have entertained the same thought. The country that once exported freedom now exports burnout.

A Country in Existential Jet Lag

75% of Americans say they’re more stressed about the nation’s future than they used to be, according to the APA’s latest findings.

That’s an astonishing finding, given what’s already on the national résumé: pandemics, inflation, climate anxiety, and political theater that would exhaust even the gods of ancient Rome.

When asked to describe America in a single word, respondents chose “freedom” most often — but “corruption” came a breath behind.

“Division” followed close enough to overhear. Hope hasn’t left our country entirely, but it’s definitely seems to be subletting.

Young adults aren’t fantasizing about foreign lands because they believe relocation will solve everything.

They’re fantasizing because staying feels like volunteering for existential dread. Their hearts, wallets, and nervous systems agree: the country isn’t just changing — it’s fraying at the cultural seams.

The Loneliness of the Connected Citizen

We’ve known for sometime that half of all American adults report feeling lonely.

That used to be a statistic for widowers or lighthouse keepers, not folks with broadband and 6,000 followers. Among those most stressed by political division, 61% say they feel isolated — compared to 43% among those less politically anxious.

69% say they needed more emotional support this year than they actually received. That’s not personal weakness; that’s a design flaw in the way we Americans live. When every social connection requires bandwidth, empathy becomes just another buffering issue.

When Democracy Gives You a Headache

For 83% of American adults who feel intensely stressed by national division, stress isn’t mental anymore — it’s physical. They report fatigue, tension, headaches, insomnia. The struggle for democracy has now become somewhat somatic.

Political tension now spills into living rooms and text threads. Those most anxious about division were more likely to yell at family (60% vs. 49%) and cancel plans (55% vs. 37%). Under Trump, our experiment in self-governance has turned into a chaotic group project with no editor.

Progress used to feel like propulsion. Now we just feel something more like motion sickness.

Leaving as a Psychological Reflex

Therapists have a word for this: flight — the instinct to escape overwhelming threat.

The APA data suggests a collective version of that reflex. Considering leaving one’s country isn’t betrayal; it’s collective grief.

Every migration fantasy is an attachment rupture with one’s own homeland.

America, for younger generations, increasingly feels like an inconsistent caregiver — promising opportunity while withholding stability. The “urge to leave” is what happens when hope and exhaustion coexist too long in the same nervous system.

Technology Anxiety: The New Cold Sweat

Even our coping tools are giving us panic attacks.
Anxiety about artificial intelligence surged from an already alarming 49% to 57% in a single year, and among students it nearly doubled — from 45 to 78%. AI was supposed to free us from drudgery; instead it’s giving us a new kind of insomnia.

Technology has always promised transcendence; now it mostly delivers updates.

Misinformation, Money, and the Market for Fear

69% of Americans list misinformation as a major stressor, while money, housing, and gun violence remain steady contributors. But what’s different now is how these stressors layer. You don’t just feel broke — you now feel misled about being broke in the first place.

We’ve built an economy that monetizes anxiety and a media landscape that franchises it. The national pastime isn’t baseball anymore; it’s doomscrolling.

Why This Matters for Relationships

In couples therapy, I see the national anxiety playing out in miniature.
When a partner says, “Maybe we should move somewhere cheaper,” that’s not escapism — it’s an attachment protest. The outside world has gotten too loud, and someone wants a quieter room.

Couples sometimes blame each other for fatigue that actually belongs to the wider culture.

You can’t heal a marriage if you think your partner is the crisis when, in fact, the entire system is.

The work isn’t escaping stress but differentiating it — learning what’s ours to fix and what’s just the weather of the age.

The Philosophy Beneath the Panic

Americans once moved for opportunity; now we move to escape malaise. Mobility has replaced meaning. The idea of “elsewhere” has become our last shared religion — the fantasy that happiness is always a flight away.

But you can’t out-migrate disillusionment. The airport isn’t therapy; it’s denial with duty-free shopping.

FAQ

Q: Is this data reliable?
Yes. It’s drawn from the APA’s Stress in America 2025 survey, a nationally representative study tracking stress trends since 2007.

Q: Does “considering moving abroad” mean most people actually will?
No. It signals contemplation, not commitment — but that thought alone suggests deep a profound cultural fatigue.

Q: What’s driving this surge in stress?
Financial instability, political division, loneliness, and technological anxiety. The American Institute of Stress identifies the same disquieting quartet.

Q: How does this affect relationships?
National stress becomes interpersonal stress. Recognizing that helps couples stop mistaking cultural anxiety for personal failure.

Q: Should people actually leave?
That’s up to them, of course. But the deeper work is learning how to live anywhere without despair — and that, ironically, might be the most patriotic act we have left.

Final thoughts

Maybe this is what national adulthood looks like — realizing the myth of endless progress was just that, a myth, and deciding to grow up in its shadow anyway.

The question isn’t whether young Americans will leave, but whether the country they’re contemplating leaving can learn humility before it loses its children entirely..

I still strongly believe that there’s something sacred about staying: about refusing to abandon a place until you’ve tried to make it more bearable.

Every generation inherits a kind of unfinished therapeutic work from their parents.

Ours may be to sit with the discomfort of what America has become, and, with whatever grace remains, keep the lights on for whoever still believes in home.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

References

American Psychological Association. (2025). Stress in America, United States, 2007–2023 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37288.v3

American Psychological Association. (2025). Work in America™ 2025 Survey: Job Insecurity and Stress Among U.S. Workers. https://www.apa.org

American Institute of Stress. (2025). What the Latest Reports Say About Stress in America.https://www.stress.org/news/what-the-latest-reports-say-about-stress-in-america/