It Seems Money Does Buy Happiness After All
A study refutes the theory that above a certain income level dollars don’t help your sense of well-being.
That money can’t buy happiness is an age-old trope. Since the advent of modern public-opinion research, scholars have been trying to test it—with varying results.
One issue is that happiness may have different aspects. In a much-cited 2010 paper, psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton (both winners of the Nobel Prize in economics) looked at Gallup surveys and found that while Americans’ assessment of life satisfaction went up in lockstep with income, their emotional well-being plateaued after a household income of about $75,000 a year, around $90,000 in today’s dollars. Emotional well-being was measured by asking about feelings experienced the previous day, then classifying the responses by whether they exhibited positive affect or blue affect (worry and sadness) and stress.