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Researchers Say Happiness Costs $75K
SpuriousLogic writes "Does happiness rise with income? In one of the more scientific attempts to answer that question, researchers from Princeton have put a price on happiness. It's about $75,000 in income a year. They 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. 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. As income decreased 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 worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one."
Money does not buy happiness, but lack of money makes a huge down payment on unhappiness.
1. Money cannot buy happiness, it can buy security.
2. When your loved ones are secure you are less stressed.
3. When you are less stressed you can focus more on being happy.
How much money you need is actually determined by how many people you have to care for. If you don't have any children, or a spouse, $75,000 is about right. If you have children, a wife, and a big family, $75,000 is a drop in the bucket and you'd probably need twice that much to provide for children and take care of parents or grand parents into old age.
I don't know about you but thats my formula. The amount is determined by the amount of people I have to provide security for and the overall security expense, along with whatever the expense is for my personal wellbeing. It's ultimately about people, unless you're a greedy anti-social.
Tomorrow's headline: "Democrats call for a new $75,000 living wage. Supported by research."
$75k can essentially fuel my coke habit for a few years. I'm not habitual, but that gets you a lot of coke spread out over a reasonable amount of time.
But that doesn't really get me happiness. I "need" to feel comforted by others, so that's where prostitution comes into play. And some of the better prostitutes which I have tried out *START* around 75.
I would say that $75,000 is a good estimate because the more money you have the less trust you usually have along with it. At $75,000 you have just enough money to maintain your friends, and family relations, and to be able to trust your spouse. When you start to get over this amount your friendships may begin to change as some friends will start to envy you or get jealous, you may not be able to trust your family members anymore or your spouse, as it gets into the $100,000+ and $200,000+ and $500,000+ eventually you do reach a point where you simply can't trust anybody anymore. Your spouse might have a life insurance policy on you and be waiting patiently for you to die. Your brothers and sisters might be fighting each other to win favor with you. Your friendships might be completely non-existent as none of these new friends might be real.
And if you aren't married and you don't have a strong family structure you may not even have that. What you'd have then is people dating you and you never knowing what their intentions are, who they are, or if they are trying to set you up, extort you, or marry you and try to take your money. You also wont be able to trust your friends either unless those friends make the same kind of money you are making because your poor friends could easily be bribed or payed off by your rich friends to spy on you.
Ultimately there is no increase to happiness with money beyond a certain amount because as money increases trust decreases. As trust decreases for most people stress increases. As stress increases for most people happiness decreases, unless they've had the kind of life experiences to allow them to have the emotional and psychological toolkit to manage stress of this sort.
This is why more money = more problems after a certain level. This is why getting to the top is usually more fun than being at the top.Trust is not a commodity, you cannot buy it or sell it. Love is not a commodity, you cannot buy and sell it.
Everyone knows thats just loser talk...
The amount of money that you require to be "happy" depends on where you live and what the lifestyles of the people around you are.
Where you live sets the baseline cost of living, and visible lifestyles determine your expectations.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
75 000 USD/year != 75 000 USD
Also, what is that uninformative picture of coins in a hand doing there? It does not add anything! This is just as bad as a newspaper article!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
The lack of money is the root of all evil?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
What I have observed is that a happy income is double your present income. I have seen this with people earning less than 20k and more than a million.
75K would be about double the national average.
Also this 75k number would completely depend on where you are. 75K is poverty in NYC while in most Podunks 75K would make you near royalty.
It's bad enough that obama already installed a glass ceiling at 200k (or so) a year -- above which you are a bourgouise pig who deserves to be punished. Now we know exactly how much wealth we need to 'spread around'.
Now we can cap income across the board at something much less than 100k, anything past that is taxed 100% -- you know, to make sure everyone gets to be happy, and that we get to fund more bullshit studies like this one.
The left leaning goons become downright dangerous when they mix their conception of 'social justice' with bullshit pop-psychology like this..
(Yeah, worrying about being evicted/fired/going hungry 24 hours a day is stressful... Imagine that! Your grant money at work, folks)
This is a well known psychological fact, sans the exact dollar value. In reality, the dollar amount correlates as a percentage greater than the dollar value an individual needs in order to cover basic living expenses. Not a link to the "exact" relation, but proof that this article in general is nothing new or profound. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-life/200806/money-and-happiness
Since the median income in the States is $32,000 (according to Wikipedia), it follows that it is impossible for everyone to be happy, in fact most will be unhappy.
few months ago the NY Times did a breakdown of a $250,000 salary in NYC. after the insane "progressive" taxes, the mortgage and HOA fees of living on the upper east side or UWS, the nanny or the crazy elite day care there is very little left.
These stupid stories based on lame research and over simplification of the human condition are really pissing me off.
$75,000 per year may buy a lot of happiness, if that is possible, in a place where the cost of living is really low, but in LA , NYC or Frisco? Forget about it - $75,000 is chicken feed - you can barely pay your rent on that salary. Guess most people living in LA, NYC and San Fran are really unhappy if this is the case.
Oh wait, I make more than that, but my wife does not work, so for the two of us we make less and we live in one of the aforementioned expensive cities. Guess we should be unhappy - dang it I hate it when I am not deemed normal!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
That's well above the average income round these parts.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Depending on the country you live in this correlation could simply collapse.
I suppose the researchers were happy, then. I suppose they were government funded? Who else would pay for that kind of research?
I've said it once, and I'll say it again: MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU HAPPINESS. You just need someone to love.
I earn about $200k p.a., and have none of the problems you mention. I've kept in contact with friends right back from school and have no problems with them. I keep in touch with my relatives and my wife's family relatives and have no problem. I work with people who earn much less and also much more than I do and have no problem. I do not see this constant lack of trust problem that you allude to.
Maybe the reason is that my own personality has changed fairly little from the times I earned about $14.5k. It has changed, but most of that is getting older not just changes of income. It's perfectly possible to have more cash p.a. and not be looking your shoulder all the time - personally I'm having a great life at the moment, mostly due to enjoying family life rather than bathing in champagne every night (which, by the way, I don't...).
Income Before gaining masters degree $90K+
Student loans taken on gaining masters $57K
Income after gaining master $87K
So, if you add in the cost of paying off my students loans, I am about $10k a year in the hole
Add in that I am performing tons of sole wasting managerial tasks and moving further away from what I really enjoy doing (database driven web development), then...
Not making me happy, not happy at all
Wherever You Go, There You Are
I don't know how you put a $ figure on it. For me, it was lack of plastic debt. I have one CC and it it paid off weekly, yeah, weekly. My main debt is my house, followed by a car; whose sale price was less than 30% my gross. I do my best to keep monthlies to a minimum, meaning paid for cell plan, my internet, and my TV.
I set aside multiple savings accounts with automatic $50 deductions or more, after a while you lose track of them until tax time but the its nice to know you have money out there. So besides paying down debt create an automatic deposit into a savings account, preferably not at the same back your checking is at. Then just file it away in the back of your mind. Never touch it unless you lost all other means of having money for shelter and food.
You can be debt free on 20K if you live right. That is where most people get tripped up. They refuse to live within their means and the blame others (if not society). I can't count the number of people I work with who have notes or leases on cars that cost half it not more than half their gross pay. Throw in $100 a month for Smart phone plans; as in many who have one are not; and its easy to see why people aren't happy, they are too busy going broke to impress people, people who generally don't care. I certainly don't care what car you park in the lot, let alone I doubt anyone seeing your shiny 5 series/E-class/A6 really gives a flip when they likely will pass another dozen of the same that day.
Don't live to impress others with material wealth.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The 75k is referring to annual HOUSEHOLD income.
However, what they don't seem to address (perhaps I missed it) is the effect of household size and/or location on happiness. Surely a family of 10 requires more money than a family of 3 to be happy? Or maybe relationships make up the extra happiness. 75k will also buy you a lot more security in small-town Wyoming than it will in downtown Manhattan.
The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one. Our wealthy ruling elite can insulate from all the social pathologies they promote. They think the middle and lower classes can weather the storms as easily as they can, so those social pathologies must not be bad. But if you live in the wreckage, you shake your fist at our ruling elite, and call down a curse on them.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
That's what Einstein would say, wouldn't he? Someone making $75,000 in NYC would be living in a closet, while someone making the same in East Swampmuck, Mississippi would be living in the lap of luxury.
The real correlation is not with income per se. The real correlation is with how well you get along with others, in other words, your interpersonal relationships.
The Harvard Longitudinal Study of Adult Development started in the 1940s and has followed the same group of people throughout. The only predictor they could find for: happiness, income, social status, marriage status, or almost anything else that mattered, was a person's relationships with their family and their relationships as young adults.
(This, of course, sounds like bad news for geeks, me included.)
http://adultdev.bwh.harvard.edu/research-SAD.html
Princeton has now been able to PROVE that getting a serious illness, or divorced is harder on poor people. WOW! Amazing! GO IVY LEAGUE
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you have to figure that raising a child costs anywhere between 500k and 1m from birth to college graduation. that doesn't even factor in missed opportunity costs for saving, investing and career mobility.
Except #3 is not always true. A lot of us have to take enormous stress to earn our six figure salaries (to pay for security of the loved ones).
More likely that all sorts of white upper-middle class trustifarian college students start demanding $75,000 for everyone, to the chant of "Happiness is a human right!"
Then come the 'experts' at House and Senate hearings:
"Over 240 million Americans go to bed every night without Happiness. Americans are unhappy right here on our own shores! We must end Sadness! When I was in college, I was unhappy. After my accident, I got a $75,000 settlement from the university, and from then on I was happy. I come here to tell you that if every American had the same $75K opportunity I did, we could end Sadness forever."
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Happiness costs $4.5M. You just get paid in installments.
(Assumes you live to 75 and spend 15 years as a kid living under someone else'es $75k/year)
Also what about taxes and living expenses ? Is this rural Texas or downtown Boston ?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of a $75 000/year salary
Probably has something to do with the fact that the poor man watches as divorce attorneys and his ex-wife divide up most of what he earned with his labor. The fact that a woman can divorce a man for literally no reason in particular (this is what "no fault divorce" really means) has made divorce extremely likely to happen to most men, especially lower status men. Women initiate about 70% of all divorces in the United States, which puts the average man at a 33% risk that for whatever reason, he'll end up getting raped by the divorce courts.
Of course, the moment you tell Americans that their personal happiness is secondary to their duties to their spouses, children, family, friends, etc. is the moment you're call an uber-Fascist anti-American Who Hates Freedom. The fact that you voluntarily entered the marriage and are now metaphorically laying down in the bed you made is not something most Americans will accept.
...But sadness can be bribed to leave you alone for brief periods of time. Money definitely helps with that.
I'm afraid my wife wouldn't understand if I told her that we're to split our bills (including mortgage) from here on out. :-)
My wife and I were considering a move to NYC at one point, and found we could get a decent place in the Bronx on a similar income. 30-45 minute commute on public transportation, and we wouldn't need to pay for cars or parking.
The problem is that a lot of upper-middle-class people who move to big cities think they can have the same suburban lifestyle, with a big house, two cars, and a driving commute, that they're used to. Studies have shown that when you factor in an urban lifestyle, places in NYC - even Manhattan - are just as affordable as many suburbs.
I mean, duh... if they weren't, the seven million or so NYC residents that don't make six figures wouldn't have a place to live.
I recently left a job where I was making under $75,000 and took a job where I am now making over $75,000. In the first case I was slightly below, and in the latter I am slightly above. In my previous job I had a lot of slack. I took the train to work. I worked pretty much whatever hours I felt like. I did not have very many responsibilities. In my current job I have less slack, I am working longer hours and I have significantly more responsibility.
In the previous job, my debt was not shrinking as quickly as I wanted it to. None the less I wasn't scratching out a subsistance living while trying to pare it down. I was going out to eat with my girlfriend a lot and making random purchases when I wanted things (PS3, HDTV, etc.) I was driving a beater car, but since I was taking the train, it didn't matter so much. In my new job, my debt is falling quickly and I'm driving a much newer car. I am still going out to eat a lot, but having obtained most of the crap that I wanted, I have extra money to pay down debt.
All in all, I'm not sure that I am any happer >$75,000 than I was at $75,000. I do know that I have less time to practice tai chi and kung fu and that irks me. I have a lot more responsibility, but I saw that coming. I'm now the guy we all read about with his Blackberry going off at all hours of the night. In life we have the opportunity to trade our time for someone else's money. They have things that need to be done, and they get to the point where their own time is so valuable that they can pay other people to do it for them. The more money that you make, the more of yourself and your time that you have to give up for it.
Based on my experience, $75,000 seems to be a good number (in Southern California) at least. A part of me thinks it is a little high. Someone who can content themselves with a simplistic life (as I wish I could, and I do half heartedly strive for), it is more than enough. Too far below it and you start having to make some sacrifices like living in not so great neighborhoods, driving older / less unreliable cars, not being able to go out whenever the mood strikes you. Yet once you get above it, you start giving up yourself. You enter that realm of responsibility where you are the go to person when things need to get done. You lose the ability to tell others, "I will deal with it tomorrow" in all but the most extreme cases. In Southern California the $75,000 mark seems to be the bottom of the "You can really do what you say you can do" pay scale. It only goes up from there as you continue to prove yourself, but you get more money at the expense of your free time.
Personally, I think I reached a little too far. I would have rather stayed below $75,000 and enjoyed the slack.
Money can't buy you love, but it can sure get you a bunch of sexy broads!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Did they go by how much a person makes or how much a person spends?
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
What about regions of the world where almost nobody make $75K? Is everybody sad there? For example: India. Anyone there could be poor but could belong to a loving family with reasonable health but earn "only" $20K. Maybe all they can afford to do in the evenings is go for a walk, tell stories, or sing songs. But what's so bad about that? Many kinds of goods are cheaper now that they were historically. What % of Americans have indoor plumbing? What fraction of people had indoor plumbing 500 years ago? Don't people with indoor plumbing have a reason to be happier? Back then you couldn't buy good dental services for any price. Even poor Americans now in many ways live more comfortable lives than royalty did a thousand years ago. I suspect that 99% of humanity have no real identity of their own. They are not capable of focusing on their own lives, doing what they can do to improve, and enjoying what they have. Instead, people judge themselves by comparing to those around them, "Keeping up with the Jonses". There's no surer way to make yourself unhappy.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
75k / 12 = 6250 $ per month, I guess that's the figure they're pointing at. Sure, the story title says 75k flat, but the summary clearly says 75k as an annual sum.
As for the picture of the coins with smileys, as i get it, suggests money + happiness, a good match for the story title. I can't see what is wrong with that.
A case of tabloid-like effectism at most, but which media outlet, big or small, isn't guilty of that these days?
Besides, the story is under the idle category. IMHO, it shouldn't be taken that seriously.
Life is hard enough. I don't need increased responsibility (stress) to weigh me down and prematurely age me.
My Grandfather was used to say: "money don't give happiness but for sure they help you to be happy!". He was a real savant.
Happiness is easy; covering the bills is the issue. Where did they find these researchers?
So you get to wait for years on a list, and then afterwards you'll probably be living in a ghetto with other people receiving section 8.
While it is possible to live this way and pay rent, is that the same thing as saying that someone could be fairly happy living this way? Sure there will always be people who can be happy in any situation and of course living on section 8 beats living in a prison cell. But living on section 8 cannot compare to living with $75k, or even with $40-50k.
I make a tad less than $75K/year, am single, no children, in my 40's, house and car paid for and I am happy. But I've been pretty happy most of my life no matter what I was making so it probably doesn't count. I've always thought it was because I gay though.
look like they're about $7 on a good Friday night... :) That being said there should be enough money for "food, children and travel - the rest is an excess" - Vigo Mortenssen.
"... at least that's what my wife told me to say"
Collector's Edition
"...but it sure can buy a yacht big enough to sail right up next to it."
- David Lee Roth
Researchers decide what revenue makes You happiest.
And
I for one welcome or new 75K earning happy overlords.
Several philosophies suggest moderating your wants to maximize your happiness (Budbhism, Epicurianism). Beyond the absolute necessity for shelter and food, one should adjust there wants to be less their means.
In NY $75,000 gross per annum for a single person with no children is a decent comfortable wage.
In NY $75,000 combined income for a childless couple is scraping by.
In NY $75,000 combined income for a couple with two children is poverty.
It is really not a lot of money. Sure, if you were to hand me $75,000 with no strings attached I would put it to good use, paying off debt and keeping the balance as a buffer against furture financial or health issues. But $75,000 as annual income is pretty meagre. What does that come out as after tax?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
...they...really needed to do research to figure this out...?
People aren't as happy living month-to-month working the same soul-stealing job than others who have disposable income and the same job? Having no money to do anything vs. having money for a weekly trip to Chuck-E-Cheese makes people less suicidal?
I know that if I made another $25k/year, that huge new plasma TV and laptop capable of running Starcraft 2 would make me less likely to blow my brains out.
I live near Dallas/Ft.Worth Texas. I make $75K (gross) annually.
Let me tell you what that allows me to afford.
1) A 35 year old house in the suburbs with a 15 year mortgage, and it needs a lot of repairs that I can't afford right now.
2) Property insurance for that house.
3) A 10year old used Chevy pickup truck (financed).
4) A 20 year old HD motorcycle (already payed for).
5) Monthly healthcare insurance premiums for myself, insurance on the two vehicles.
6) Food, utilities, gasoline to drive back & forth to work, clothes, general living expenses.
7) Broadband internet for my house, I do not have cable TV, I watch over-the-air TV on an old Analog TV set thru a converter box.
8) Voice-only cellphone.
9) Buttloads of taxes.
10) And finally a meager $300 per month to sock away into savings so I can have some semblance of a retirement... if I live that long.
And that's it. My paycheck is all gone after the above items.
Yes the 15 year mortgage does make the monthly payments quite large, but if you do the math of how much interest you pay with a 20-30 yr mortgage, it'll make your head explode. Long-term mortgages are sheer stupidity.
I remember watching Family Ties where Alex went crazy when he was offered a Wall Street job for 40K. Now, you'd struggle pretty hard trying to feed a family of 4 or at least not enjoy all the goodies in life. 75k-80K is pretty good for a single person. For a family of 4 it's OK, but alot of struggles....While I make a more then 75K plus bonuses, I'm so glad my wife likes to have a career too!
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Most of the costs are "per year" mind you.
Price of childhood trauma from witnessing your parents gunned down in front of you and "other eventualities" was not included for obvious reasons.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The solution is to make friends with people who are even richer than you. So join a country club.
The people in the country club are more experienced at being rich and they better know how to abuse their money. You certainly cannot trust other rich people, in fact those country club rich people are the people you'd be least able to trust.
They are richer than you sure, but that doesn't mean they'll respect you.
While I agree that $75k can easily let you be happy in a small town or possibly in a small city in the middle of nowhere. But living on that in or near a medium to large city or in a major metropolitan area and you will be barely making ends meet, especially if you have a family and need a car and you're the only bread winner.
Without knowing the details, I guess that the $75k number was an average between country folk being happy at $50k and city dwellers needing $100k. A number that means nothing because who lives half in the city and half in the country? They should present the data geographically.
...you assume a high degree of income disparity throughout society. But if the middle class becomes proportionally much larger, then trust becomes less of a problem.
The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one."
The study also found that a spike nailed through the foot hurts less if you're rich. Probably because you can afford to have it pulled out without becoming homeless.
Can I get some of the money for reports like that, so I can get this spike pulled out of my foot?
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Happiness in the view of these researchers appears to be a lack of stress due to resource security. Food, shelter, health and crap made in China. You know; the American Dream we're all told we must follow from the cradle.
If you go about seeking these resources through conventional means and with conventional aims, then yeah, you can pin a price tag on it. We've been trained to seek out only one set of narrow solutions to life.
But if you re-build your mind and your systems for moving through life, then happiness comes with a much lower price tag. And I'm not talking about simply finding bargains on the same consumer crap. I'm talking about alternative health, energy and food systems. Knowing your food producer. Ditching the TV set. -I don't mean going out to live in the woods or in a commune or something extreme like that. I'm not talking about the hippie lifestyle, though that can work if it's done right. I'm simply saying that with the right approach and open eyes and the courage to embrace new systems because they work and not because they are promoted by the status quo, you can get by in a very healthy manner without having to play the banker's game. Many of the people I know make a LOT less than $75,000, and they are among the healthiest, strongest, most capable and, by far, the happiest people I've ever known. I wonder if the guys who created this study know what it means to be really happy. As it happens, I also know a bunch of people who make more than $75,000 and while there are certainly some happy people among them who have figured this stuff out, the demographic also seems to include a whole lot of directionless, boring and empty people who are demonstrably NOT happy. I've seen many who are always living with this odd tension they cannot name or put their finger on, or are even aware of, but I see them walk around with a slightly pinched expression as though they just know on some level that they missed the train to somewhere they were hoping to visit but somehow forgot.
-FL
After accounting for the euro to dollar conversion (and discounting different taxes and cost of living because I'm tired) Science(*) says I should be about 90% happy!
Yay!
(*) and not any kind of Science, Princeton Science!
you seem to value duty over happiness, and you seem to be wary of someone else having at will fickle power that might effect you
in other words, you sound like a soldier, you don't sound like a husband
not everyone was meant to marry, and it seems to me your only mistake was ever thinking marriage was something that fits your character. you simply aren't cut out for marriage. not that that's a bad thing. the bad thing is trashing the idea of marriage, just because marriage doesn't work for you. that's a kind of self-centeredness that you seem hellbent on criticizing in your post, but you don't even see that you have just as much of inside of you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
10 Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. 11 As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? 12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. 13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner, 14 or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when he has a son there is nothing left for him. 15 Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. 16 This too is a grievous evil: As a man comes, so he departs, and what does he gain, since he toils for the wind? 17 All his days he eats in darkness, with great frustration, affliction and anger. 18 Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot. 19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God. 20 He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.
I think it's a perfectly valid point of view to believe a government should protect an environment where it's most productive members are enabled to enrich themselves
I can't work out whether you are a confused socialist or a confused conservative.
Deleted
Pre-tax? Or post-tax. Big difference there. I went from making $165K a year to $77K a year pre-tax. Big difference. But the former involved an ugly commute so I guess it's true abut $75K.
That is what accountants are for.
Seriously though, you can raise taxes of the rich elite to 150% if you want, but the end result will be the same. They hide all their wealth in tax loop holes and offshore accounts. Or if you work at Apple, in a shoebox labeled "Kickbackz"...
I fail to see how a straight dollar figure can be related directly to income. I'd say living expenses vs income has a far, far more profound effect on happiness.
Many, if not most people, have a tendency to live at the limits of their income. They get a raise and they go out and buy a new car. They get promoted and go out and buy a larger home. Or more likely, they aren't spending money on large one-time expenses, but many smaller ones. A more expensive mobile phone plan than they need along with a new phone every year, new clothing, maintaining an active nightlife, etc. These are the sorts of things that slip by unnoticed. What's another $20? $50? $100?
But before they know it they're right back at square one. They're "struggling" to get by because they don't have any money left over at the end of the month. A higher income has enabled them to own more stuff or go out more, but they're no happier. Of course, the higher the income, the longer it takes to reach that point.
Then there's the matter of where you live. $75k a year is meaningless when one region has a substantially higher cost of living than another. But if you're able to save money, if unexpected expenses aren't forcing you to reach for your credit card then chances are you're reasonably happy. I know people across a fairly good range of incomes and the ones who seem to be reasonably happy aren't facing significant, if any debt.
One of the failing points of TFA is the failure to distinguish between earned and unearned income. Winning a lottery resulting in an unearned income of ~$75k a year (for x years) will statistically make you FAR less happier than earning a modest living of $75k a year.
Is to want what you have rather than trying to have what you want.
If you earn $40k / year, don't spend money like you make $80k. Debt is stress. Debt is unhappiness. Avoid it.
People of all various income levels can be happy or not. It depends on how they choose to live their lives. People who over-spend because they think having those nicer things will make them more happy end up being owned by their things. And in debt. Both of which lead to unhappiness and stress.
I am quite happy. Why is that? My home mortgage is less than half of what I could afford. I drive an 8 year old car which I paid off 5 years ago. Therefore, I have some enough money each month for entertainment and also enough to save for the future.
No stress and I get to have fun. Stop trying to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. It will inevitably lead you toward stress and unhappiness.
That's right. We're put on this planet to enjoy ourselves and be happy. That's what it's all about.
The grandparent is not the problem. He is simply taking what is offered. If he didn't take the government assistance offered to help there would still be millions of others that did. The problem is that the assistance is available with no regard for priority or limits.
If the options are limited to "work at Walmart with no healthcare for minimum age" or "accept SSI and get healthcare", 99% of people are going to take SSI as this would be the smartest option among bad options.
If the Walmart job does not exist then the options are limited to "Become a criminal and buy healthcare and risk prison." or "take SSI, receive healthcare and don't risk prison."
Once again for most people taking SSI is the best option but now the weight of each option is based on factors such as the probability of getting caught as a criminal, the amount of prison time they'd be facing, the amount of money they'd make from the crime, and the quality of life for those in prison as compared to the quality of life for those on SSI.
So in the 1920s it was probably smarter to be a criminal because there wasn't surveillance everywhere and vice cops patrolling everywhere. Today theres vice cops patrolling craigslist to catch the escorts, so what happens to these escorts who have to quit out of fear of being arrested by the craigslist vice cop? They are the ones who will be going on SSI taking the dole, and probably their pimps along with them, and their drug dealer and an entire eco-system of would be criminals.
Why is that? Because it's less risk and greater benefit to be on SSI than to do most kinds of crime, especially now when society wants to on one level crack down hard on non-violent crime but on the other hand complain about the cost of paying people not to become criminals. SSI basically pays people to not become a criminal. For $8000 a year a person can be paid not to be a criminal while if we get rid of SSI and all social programs like it tomorrow, the cost of housing someone in prison is $30,000 a year.
So you see it actually costs less money to pay for SSI than it does to pay for prison. So the question taxpayers should be asking is why it's okay to spend all this money on prisons, vice cops, and surveillance, which probably costs way more than $30,000 a year to house the prisoner but also the cost of hiring the cop or cops to do the craigslist sting operation, or the cost of the war on drugs, or the cost of any of these programs which don't really reduce poverty. SSI is just the cheapest solution among bad solutions and with 9-10% unemployment I think you can expect the number of people on SSI to increase, and you can also expect the number of people in prison to increase.
There is really no way around it until we legalize a whole bunch of ways that people can make money.
For anyone interested in the topic of happiness you should checkout this book: http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/ There are a few free chapters in there.
I did not read the article. But I suspect they mean Americans when they say "people." Even though the US only has about 5% of the world's population.
Well, using the internets:
Rough cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 (based on http://www.costofwar.com/ at the time I viewed it) and rounding to the nearest billion:
Iraq: $745,000,000,000
Afghanistan: $330,000,000,000
Total: $1,075,000,000,000
US Population:
310,186,000 (based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States)
So if nothing had been spent on either war (and who knows how they are calculating the figures of course), each US citizen could have been paid: $3465.66 - or alternatively saved that much in taxes :P
Its a long way from $75,000 per year.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Happiness is 10% more money than the guy next to you is getting.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I live in SiVal, where $75K would, in its untaxed entirety, just about cover rent and utilities on a modest apartment in a safe neighborhood. It takes more like $150K (and up, if you have dependents) to achieve the modest level of security that lets you think about something other than your job and feel something other than anxiety about the circumstances you and your loved ones face.
Connections determine worth.
Stop with the "$75k isn't enough to live on in NYC, LA, etc." We all know people in those cities aren't happy anyway, so I'm sure they were left out of the data set.
You report, Slashdot decides
Prevueing you're poast ownly hellps iff ewe no how two spel inn teh furst plase
Whenever I hear groups talk about how war money could have been spent doing X, Y, or Z, I like to remind them that that money never existed in the first place. It's all debt, borrowed money from the future.
If you can barely afford to pay rent and eat, the question isn't 'should I buy a Ford or a Buick?' it's 'how can I avoid a car payment?'
The federal government is spending roughly 1/3rd more than it takes in this coming year. Even without the wars, it's tapped-out (barring massive tax increases).
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Is there an opening at your old job? A good salary AND free time!? DUDE!!! This is like a threesome to my ears. The metaphorical lusty temptresses of free time and more-than-decent money are figuratively fondling me and moaning softly at the same time right now.
Do you know what nearly $75k a year AND free time is to a crafty DIYer such as myself!? Hell I'd be overjoyed with half that plus free time (but please don't repeat that >:) )
I'm serious, if it's open, email me. Remember I asked first! :D
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Freedom isn't free either, but apparently it's a lot cheaper than happiness...
Happiness: $75,000 per year
Freedom: $1.05
Bow-ties are cool.
the standard marriage contract only requires the male to be dutiful to the terms?
LOL
you're delusional
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-08-23/
Being Happy, Healthy, Wise and Wealthy isn't everything. The 5th element, a "give the best of yourself to the world" sort of ideal, also exists.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
For the last 3 years my wife and I, together, have made about that much living in Nebraska. That's more money in Nebraska than it is in most places in the US... Now, we've been pretty happy and always felt like our goals were achievable, but had to wait long enough to enjoy each new amenity as we could afford it. We can afford to go out and enjoy ourselves, but can't come to depend on it and go out every night. I think it provides a really nice balance.
But if I had 3 kids and lived in Chicago that $75k would probably feel like a lot less!
And if it was per adult, $150k between me and my wife would seem insanely high. Even with 3 kids that'd be quite a bit of money.
The lack of detail in this article made it completely meaningless. I hope the research was done more accurately.
You made my day, I make significantly more than an MBA grad (over 50% more). And I'm a community college drop out.
They forgot about debt. Assuming you had to take out loans for your degree, and loans for your car to get to work, and loans for your house $75k may not be enough, but, if you were debt-free, $75k would be plenty of money.
According to http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm , the taxpayers spend us$ 900 Billon.....so...900 B / 75 k = 12 M of unhappy people...but..some VERY happy contractors, senators and friends of G.W.!!!
I suspect happiness is *relative* to the average income of your neighbors and friends.
Personally, I have made above and below six figures and find that I am much happier above six figures when surrounded by middle class people.
Basically, anything a middle class person could want, I can get and still have money left over.
Be 20% richer than your block or your friends and you'll be happy.
Be 20% less wealthy than they are and you'll be unhappy (because you can't take that trip with everyone, your car sucks compared to theirs, etc.)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Most of our urges create a condition of unhappiness that we instinctively strive to remove. That's what propels life. And as long as there is a reason to be unhappy (hunger, poverty, lack of a spouse, lack of children, pain, boredom, stress etc), we feel unhappy.
It follows that almost all people have a reason to be unhappy.
We can compensate that unhappiness with hope. But as we mature, we understand that some hope is in vain and unhappiness gradually takes over hope. Many counteract with alcohol or drugs.
Even if all reasons for unhappiness are removed, happiness doesn't automatically follow because happiness is not absense of unhappiness. True if temporary happiness comes from the giddy feeling of looking forward to something good and the sense of accomplishment.
I am so close to being happy... :(
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Anything that puts my disdain for Emo music at odds with my right to freedom of expression is going to make my head explode. I can definitely see moving to a hut in Montana as an option if this ever happens.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Look for more stories like this, to get the (stupid) public thinking you only need so much money. Then it will make it easier for the government to TAKE more from the wealthy, and "spread the rest" around to those that don't have money (those that refuse to get a job, those that are flat out stupid, those that only want a job, where there are no jobs in the first place etc. What anyone makes is "the American dream". Work hard and you (usually) get rewarded. I know I put in extra hours, sometimes on weekends, and I am rewarded more for it. That is how it works. You bums out there need to get up off of your lazy butts, quit playing wii all night long and quit screwing around. This also includes the welfare breeders who pop out a new kid every 12-18 months.
Yeah, imagine that. If you actually pay attention to the disproportionate way that men are unjustly treated by divorce courts, you might think it's unacceptable that such power can be unleashed by simply walking away.
Then they shouldn't get married if they cannot take the bad with the good. When you get married, you are pledging a continuous duty to your spouse to love and care for them. If you cannot do that, then just don't get married.
What I am sick of are all of the people who get married and then treat it like it's a dating relationship. If you can't take the commitment (and most women cannot, based on the stats), then don't get married.
Two reasons:
1. $75K is enough money so you can confidently say to yourself you are doing pretty good. It is comfortably enough above the average salary so you just don't meet that many people who put your salary to shame, even if you meet enough people who make more.
2. It is enough money so you don't really have any money problems. Barring a serious health issue (which will make you unhappy anyway), if you are unable live within $75K it is probably a personal problem.
You seriously planned in 26 vacations/year into your "comfortable" standard of living? Man am I jealous. I'm lucky if I can afford one vacation/year.
You only get to leave your town once a year?
Wow.
Sounds more like incarceration than living.
I definitely agree that money can buy you happiness up to a certain point. I've never made more than around $30,000 per year (I currently make about $18,000). So I can't speak to the $75,000 issue. I have no doubt it would improve my life though. When (in a dream) I was in Cuba most people I met made no more than $15 per month. Sometimes $30 per month if they did illegal stuff. The only people who made any real money were the prostitutes and drug dealers, some of whom made as much or more than I did. It is true that their rent and utilities were very, very low and they had ration books (1 per family IIRC) for buying basic food staples like some rice and beans, but $15 per month is still $15 per month. What I noticed very quickly was that, despite the poverty, a lot of people I met seemed happier than I was. Of course, there were plenty of exceptions. People who wanted to escape to the US or really any other country. People who wanted to work hard and actually get rewarded for it. But quite a few Cubans had figured out how to be relatively happy without material goods. Would they have been happier making $75,000 a year instead of $180? I have no doubt. Almost everyone there longed for material goods. They wanted them badly. And yet they still managed to live fairly happy lives. I'm not really sure what their secret was, but I would guess it had something to do with the cliche of enjoying the simple pleasures of life. They spent a lot of time just hanging out with friends and family. Sometimes listening to music or drinking cheap rum.
When I was living in Laos, many people made no more than $100 per month and often worked long hours (12-16 hours a day) to get it. And yet, again, many of them were happier than I was. My Lao friend is unhappy though. He is tired of working 16 hour days nearly every day and getting very little in return. His family was very poor and he feels about money the same way that I feel about my looks, that it is preventing him from really living life. He feels that he is basically without worth. He was recently married to a girl who loves him very much. But he feels unworthy of her. Feels that being poor makes him somehow worthless as a human being.
In Jakarta, I once met a guy who claimed that he was kicked out of his house when he was like 10 years old because his parents didn't have money to support him. He had a story about living on the streets as a child and finding food in trash cans etc. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but it was an interesting story if true. So who is worse off? Someone like that or someone too ugly to ever have a girlfriend or wife? I guess when you get to the extremes of either case it is pretty unpleasant but I would choose money at that level. If I ever reached a point of living out of trash cans I would just kill myself. I mean, what would be the point of living like that?
My own theory is that money does buy you a piece of the happiness pie. But only a piece. A lot depends on the individual. To what extent they value money compared to valuing relationships with others. Another major piece is what you look like. Just like rich people tend to be happier than poor people (all other things being equal), beautiful people tend to be happier than ugly people. The Elephant Man wouldn't have been happy no matter how many millions of pounds sterling he had. Physical beauty gives you at least as much power in the world as money and is at least as capable of giving you happiness. I think most people who are both beautiful and rich are also happy, or at least as happy as a complex animal like a human can be. You can always find something to complain about no matter how happy you are. The world isn't perfectly suited to our needs. Besides money and looks, I think intelligence may also be a factor. Being stupid is not much fun. You end up with some unbearably boring, monotonous job and you can't ever really accomplish any goals in the world that are not merely physical. Of course, being stupid, you may not realize that you are missing out on something. If y
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Happiness is not being forced out of college because you happened to land in the ER with a few subsequent visits and a big surgery. One less engineer, one more low wage worker.
California is a big state. There is a lot more to it than the coast. I live in CA and have a 4 bedroom, 2200 sq ft house with a pool and a 12k lot and my mortgage is 1600.00 per month.
Well, now I finally know why I'm so miserable! Wait... do you think my doctor will change my perscription to 'money'?
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
I live VERY modestly in the SoCal mountains. I am 27 and I am the sole income for my family of 5. As a teacher making 48k plus benefits, I feel very poor. I could not even imagine having 75k per year. The cars are paid off, but I still have near zero disposable income. We don't eat out, we don't shop for non-essentials. 75k per year would make a world of difference in our lives. However, everywhere other venue for work that I have looked for pays less than I am currently getting to start. I am pigeon-toed into my current job.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
People who are wealthy usually live humbly. Over 80% of millionaires are first generation meaning self-made and they earned their money. Most do not have extravagant lifestyles but are just common working people who have worked smarter. Their savings and investments are more important to them than lifestyle. People like that don't have "trust issues".
You should read the statistical analysis book called "The Millionaire Next Door" it's a damn good book on the subject!
Libertas in infinitum
Because if I understand the literature, real deal narcissists are rarely happy.
In california add 100,000 to that 75,000 for happiness. 75,000 in california won't even cover rent and utilities.
I say things which affects my Karma negatively. (and I don't care) For instance; All religion is false.
So if this is to be believed, then with a current world population of 6,697,254,041 (*75,000)
It would cost 502,294,053,075,000 per year
so 500 Trillion dollars a year for EVERYone to be happy.
Current world gdp is 61 Trillion.
My Utopian dream bubble has been popped.
",,, So, Mr. Isabusyguy, I've noticed that you have not worked in web development (enter any skill set here) for the past five years. Um, really, what makes you believe that you can jump right back into it and remain effective?"
I've been interviewed like that, and I have interviewed people like that. It comes down to the vast shift in development tools that happens even in five years. Some people can make the transition from Oracle db and AOL server to SQLServer and IIS, some have a harder time, everybody has to work like a slave to recover similar skill sets.
I have hired people trying to play catchup, and watched them leave for stress reasons after six months in which I felt they performed well.
Of course, being the dinosaur in the room (I can tell you about floppy disks) has it's advantage. I can make vague suggestions for table structure or architecture and watch a team of whippershappers work their asses off delivering a solution. So yeah, I miss the hands on, I miss "owning" a unique skill set, but I DO enjoy convincing a competent team of people to make my (slightly addeled) ideas work
Is it really so wrong that I should expect this to pay more than when I was just some gunslinger that a consulting company would bring in to close out projects on budget?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Management By Walking Around
Wherever You Go, There You Are
but whatever works for u..
I'm not exactly happy but money wouldn't fix that, because for me, everything and everyone are connected , but most humans have been bread to believe that they're only connected to their power group, (work, friends) and/or their family. I can't really be happy in this world because it's a shambles and if I was to be part of some elite group that is all connected and not in shambles, then I would be elitist and that makes no sense to me because the elites aren't connected to ordinary people (well, they are they just don't know it or don't care, probably the latter) Personally, I secretly enjoy the demise of humanity in some ways. I'm human but really, let's be honest - humans are the architects of their own demise, either that or there really are reptilians and that just means the reptilians don't know we are all connected and therefore they also suck.
So, I'm happy about it in some ways and I'm sad about it in others. That's my destiny!
Getting out of the city regularly is an integral part of what is considered "comfortable living" here. That's part of why the "Heaven and Hell" quote was so poignant. Feel free to verify with this information with any New Yorker who lives comfortably or aspires to do so.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
Anything more than 75 k is just irrational
Happiness? Quite Simple. Practice Altruism.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
This study only shows that you need 75k$ on average, if you live in the US. Damn, I am fed up of the results of the publish-or-perish attitude of "researchers". Apart from that, the results of this study are not new and have been found similarly in other relevant studies. So I wonder how that passed the peer review process.
Comparative studies over several countries have located the most happy people in ... Bangladesh and Denmark. On of these is poor and flood-ridden, the other on has a strong social-benefit state, a nice cosy society and experiences floods, too.
Anybody know? Either in Euros or preferably SEK?
Seriously; I'm interested. It's not enough to just convert the figure, you need to take into account cost of living in that area to get the equivalent, and that is hard to work out.
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman
Personally, I think I reached a little too far. I would have rather stayed below $75,000 and enjoyed the slack.
"Demote" yourself then. You know what you want---less money, more slack and a more relaxed lifestyle with more of your time being your own. Aim for what you want. Work towards your goal.
Never mind people who don't understand. To me it makes perfect sense: you only have one life, and money can't buy you the time you need to add meaning to your life via tai chi, kung fu or HDTVs ;-)
Why are the Slashdot "intelligentia" attempting to divine the price (in $) of Happiness? Is this an American thing? Mazlow's base requirements need quite a small number, after which setting an exchange rate between happiness and money is like comparing laughter and soap.
----
Never get rated, either because I'm an idiot, or because I don't comment in the first 15 minutes due to something called "a life"
The numbers here are meaningless because of variations in cost of living, whether or not you have a paid-for house, medical bills, etc., not to mention health problems of their own, their spouse’s, or their child’s that no amount of money would fix, and other unmeasured variables, but the so-called “research,’ the criteria for which are not revealed here, must have been fun. Happiness, like the economic value of artichokes or many other goods, is, subjective, or the sum of the subjective valuations of potential buyers. I don’t know how one would quantify happiness, but the subjective nature of value is elementary economics 101, or was when I majored in it. Looking back over my life, or my adult life, I don’t think my personal and largely subjective assessment my happiness or unhappiness tracked my monetary income, assets, or net worth, which have all gone up and down. I used to have a running conversation with the wealthiest man in America at that time when we officed in the same building and rode the elevators at odd hours. He often talked about things like having followed bad medical advice with respect to his brilliant first-born son with schizophrenia, and I am sure that he was nowhere near the happiest person I knew casually or otherwise, but notably unhappy. I have read survey data that indicated that the average person, across the income distribution, believed that he would be happy with thirty percent (30%) more disposable income. I’ve seen some who started out making fun of others who let their families go chasing more money and ended up doing the same thing, and ending up broke and worse.