Money Does Indeed Buy Happiness, and the More, the Better

“Does money buy happiness?”

The answer is a “yes”, and the more you have, the happier you may be.

According to new research by the senior fellow at UPenn’s Wharton School, there apparently is no “happiness plateau,” or point at which “more money is no longer associated with greater happiness.”

Researchers administered a life satisfaction survey to more than 33,000 US adults between the ages of 18 and 65 with annual incomes of at least $10,000.  They first found that the so-called happiness gap between affluent and middle-income participants—those with an average annual income of between $70,000 and $80,000—was larger than that between middle- and low-income subjects.Not only that, but the scientists busted a long-held assumption that once people attain enough money to be comfortable, their happiness flatlines. Instead, millionaires and billionaires were found to be “substantially and statistically significantly happier than people earning over $500,000 each year.”

These findings refute a high-profile 2010 study that found a happiness plateau takes hold with people who reach an income of $75,000.