Scientists Bust the Myth: It Turns Out Money Can Buy You Happiness

A US scientist has concluded that wealthy Americans are much happier than people with middle and low incomes.

The study was published by Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, as part of his large-scale research project trackyourhappiness.org, The Guardian reports.

Rich and super-rich people reported 6 out of 7 points of satisfaction with their lives, while people with middle and low incomes reported about 4 points.

The data showed that the gap in the ‘level of happiness’ between wealthy and middle-income participants ($70-80 thousand per year) was greater than between middle- and low-income participants.

At the same time, the happiness index steadily increases with incomes of $100 thousand per year and more.

The study involved more than 33,000 adults from 17 countries aged 18-65 who live in the United States, work and earn at least $10,000 a year.

Killingsworth selected low- and middle-income, rich and super-rich people, and then asked them about their ‘life satisfaction’ on a 7-point scale.

The gap in happiness between the richest and poorest people was huge.

Low-income participants reported life satisfaction just above 4. The average for the two lower-income groups was 4.14 points, while the two wealthy groups came close to 6 points out of 7.

‘The difference in income and wealth closed more than half (approximately 58%) of the gap between the not very satisfied low-income participants and the maximum of the scale,’ the scientist concluded.

In addition, the difference in life satisfaction between wealthy and middle-income people was almost three times greater than between middle-income and low-income people.

The author of the study believes that wealthy people feel more satisfied with their lives not only because of the material things they can buy, but because of the freedom and peace of mind that comes with being wealthy.

‘When people have more money, they have more control over their lives. They have more freedom to live the way they want to live,’ said Killingsworth.

At the same time, the scientist does not advise to perceive wealth as a way to make everyone happy.

In his opinion, there is a certain limit to wealth, after which the level of happiness becomes less stable (for example, $500,000 a year). Killingsworth wrote that simply wealthy people are ‘significantly and statistically significantly happier than people earning more than $500,000 per year’.

It should be noted that this study, titled ‘Money and Happiness: Extended Evidence Against Satiety,’ is an independent publication and has not been peer-reviewed. Also, Killingsworth surveyed only people living in the United States, so the results cannot be generalised to everyone.