Up to about $75,000 – that’s how much we need a year to be happy, according to a new study from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. The lower a person earns annually, the unhappier he or she feels. But interestingly, earning higher doesn’t have any effect on a person’s degree of happiness.
Economist Angus Deaton and psychologist, also Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Daniel Kahneman analyzed 450,000 responses by Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009. The participants were asked about their income; how they felt the previous day; and whether they feel that they’re living the best possible life.
The study explains that low income is not the cause of sadness itself, but it made life’s adversities harder to bear. For example, among divorced people, 51% who made less than $1,000 a month say that they feel sad or stressed the previous day, while only 24% of those earning more than $3,000 a month reported similar feelings.
The study doesn’t say why $75,000 a year is the magic number to be happy. Probably, at that level, people have enough expendable money to make them feel good.
But looking at the larger picture, the study also concludes that high incomes don’t bring you happiness; they only bring you a life you think is better. The more money people make, the more people feel that their life is going well. This makes sense, especially that past studies on money and happiness assert that it’s relative wealth or status (or how much more money you have than your neighbors) that affects our happiness.
So, in the end, it’s not really about having $75,000 to be happy. It should be about feeling happy even without having much money.
Source: Time
