Rich people really do have more fun!
If inflation wasn’t already depressing you, a new study has found that happiness levels are statistically related to income.
The world’s billionaires, like Jeff Bezos and Kim Kardashian, are living life to the fullest, compared to the average American worker.
“I think a big part of what’s happening is that when people have more money, they have more control over their lives,” said study author Matthew A. Killingsworth. CBS MoneyWatch‘The money-happiness curve continues to rise well beyond $500,000 a year.’
A widely cited study in 2010 suggested that a person is at their happiest when they reach $75,000 (or about $110,000, adjusted for inflation).
Last year, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School debunked the well-known 2010 study. However, in their original study, the researchers lacked data on people earning more than $500,000, raising uncertainty about whether salaries above that figure would improve happiness.
The world’s billionaires, like Jeff Bezos and Kim Kardashian, have more fun than you do. A new study has found that your happiness is directly related to your income.
Killingsworth surveyed more than 33,000 employed American adults between the ages of 18 and 65 and asked them to rate their overall life satisfaction compared to their income on a scale of one to seven.
He compared his group’s rating to a study that looked at the ultra-rich who earned between $3 million and $7.9 million.
He found that the wealthy rated their life satisfaction much higher than those earning six figures. studypublished in Happiness Science, shows that happiness relative to your income has no limit.
“I suspect it’s much more fundamental and psychologically deeper than just buying more stuff,” he told CBS.
He found that those who earned around $30,000 rated their lives an average of four, while those who earned around $500,000 rated their lives more than five.
Billionaires, on the other hand, generally rate themselves closer to a six.
“It certainly doesn’t seem like half the population is past the point where money no longer matters, for example,” Killingsworth said.
However, this does not mean that the ultra-rich are always happy and Killingsworth found that those who did not start with a large income appreciate higher sums more and are therefore happier.
He found that those who earned around $30,000 rated their lives an average of four out of seven, while those who earned around $500,000 rated their lives an average of five. Billionaires, on the other hand, generally rated themselves an average of six.
Those who earned more than $150,000 expressed more financial stress than those who earned between $40,000 and $149,000, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
“A given amount of money appears to generate much more happiness for people who have less money to start with,” he said. “Economic trends in the United States appear to be going in the opposite direction: the poorest have earned the least in recent decades, and the richest have earned the most.”
However, all is not lost for those with lower incomes, as their salary is not the only factor in happiness.
“I think it’s important for everyone – policy makers, executives and ordinary people – to keep in mind that there are many things that matter besides money,” he said.
Some alternatives include spending quality time with friends and family and focusing on wellness.
“It is perfectly possible to be rich and miserable or poor and happy,” he said. “The main reason is simply that there are many things that matter for happiness besides money.”