$75,000 Buys Happiness, Twice as Much Buys More

"Money doesn't buy happiness." Ask anyone who had been slaving away on his desk late last night. Happiness seems to stop going up at $75,000. Make more and you are no better off.

This is only a third of the story.

Double my income today and I'll tell you tomorrow that I am happier for it -- another piece of conventional wisdom. I might get used to my increased riches eventually, but for now let me enjoy the extra cash.

There's another, even more profound complication lurking in the background: Ask me how I evaluate my life overall, and the threshold goes away altogether. More money suddenly does buy more happiness, even for a household raking in more than $75,000 per year.

$75,000 itself, of course, is already high. Two thirds of American households make less. Half make less than $50,000. And that's Americans. Most of the world has a ways to go to hit any kind of plateau.

Even if we moved from our obsession with money to maximizing "happiness," we'll be accumulating quite a bit more stuff for a while.

 

 

 

Follow Gernot Wagner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/econsavesplanet

Comments

[jdevans]

01:50 AM on 07/20/2011

So that's why American CEOs are shipping jobs overseas! So the US can catch up on the unhappiness the rest of the world's experiencing.

[ApprxAm]

12:07 AM on 07/20/2011

Mr. Wagner, do you get the sense that American interest is trying pretty hard to have the rest of the world catch up us on the lower scale?

Believe it or not, I haven't gotten too many response to this question from expert and amateur alike.

[lightist]

11:27 PM on 07/19/2011

That's 'double-speak' backflip with a half-gainer.