New studies show that, contrary to the popular saying that 'money can't buy happiness,' there is in fact a direct correlation between one's happiness and how much money they make. And we can't say we are exactly surprised to hear that.
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If there's anything we've learned during the pandemic, is that the richer get ridiculously richer and the poor and middle class are the one's suffering the most.
What did previous research on money and happiness say?
A new study found that money can actually be conducive to greater amounts of happiness in one's life. In the past however, it had been said that people's amount of happiness does not increase in those that make over £54,000 per year.
Essentially, after reaching a specific annual income bracket, which previous research had set at £54,000, one's level of happiness plateau's from which the age-old saying came from.
This study was conducted by a Nobel Prize winning economist that concluded that one's sadness increased if they did not attain that minimum amount but that it also did not increase once it had surpassed it.
Contemporary views on happiness and income
Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at Wharton School for Business at the University of Pennsylvania, has recently disproved what was once said about money not having that great of an impact on one's happiness. In his research, sampling 1,725,994 cases American adults, he discovered that:
A question that asked participants: 'To what extent do you think money is indicative of success in life?' showed that the association between income and well-being was steeper for people who equated money and success.
Adding that:
Here, over one million real-time reports of experienced well-being from a large US sample show evidence that experienced well-being rises linearly with log income, with an equally steep slope above $80,000 as below it.
Which in conclusion means that higher income has the potential to improve one's day to day well-being and that there is no monetary threshold that would cease an increase in one's happiness.
