What’s Your Price For Happiness?

At what level of income will the quality of your life be satisfying ... $50,000; $75,000; $100,000? A team of researchers from Princeton University decided to study how money affects a person’s view of life.

The result: Your feelings about the quality of experiences and general feelings about your life tend to level off if you earn $75,000 or more, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune about the Princeton research.

Researchers found that not having enough money definitely causes emotional pain and unhappiness. But, after reaching an income of about $75,000 per year, money can't buy happiness. More money can, however, help people view their lives as successful or better.

Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, from the Center for Health and Well-being at Princeton, tried to evaluate the effect of money in two ways: One was on how people think about their lives and the other was on the feelings they have as they experience life. Responses from more than 450,000 Americans, gathered in 2008 and 2009, were evaluated.

The study found that people's evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences – their feelings – did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year.

Employers should not take the study results as reasons to withhold raises, wrote Ryan Derousseau, blogging for mediabistro.com.

"Our data speak only to differences," the Princeton researchers wrote. "They do not imply that people will not be happy with a raise from $100,000 to $150,000, or that they will be indifferent to an equivalent drop in income ... What the data suggest is that above a certain level of stable income, individuals' emotional well-being is constrained by other factors in their temperament and life circumstances."

As income declined from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have greater impact on a poor person than on a wealthier one, according to the Tribune.
"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain," the researchers wrote. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

So, while it's important to have good feelings, it is also good to think your life is going well, wrote Shari Roan in her original report on the Princeton study for the Los Angeles Times. What the study does not explain, the authors said, is which of those factors is more important.

At WMB, we see an obvious conclusion: Money does not equal happiness. It is however a means to an end, providing the wherewithal to accomplish worthwhile projects which benefit humanity, or even just folks in your own community. We call it the personal fulfillment factor.

Somebody making $30,000 can be just as happy as someone earning $75,000 if there’s a deep sense of accomplishment, of creating, directing, shaping, and helping with something greater than you. For some, it’s providing the best you can for your family; for others, it’s helping strangers in times of need. Perhaps it’s doing both.

Corporations, smaller companies and businesses, and workers can tackle charitable goals involving a common good. United Way’s work is just one example of what can be accomplished by people from all walks of life, all levels of income.

Sure, money is important, there’s no denying it. But it’s also true you can’t take it with you. In WMB’s view, the wisest course of action is to make the most of whatever income you can generate through honest work which benefits the greatest number of people.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it with family, friends and colleagues.