I hope so.
Money can buy happiness
131–140 of 172 posts
Re: Money can buy happiness
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
The data I've seen shows the income where happiness flattens is around 100k rather than 70k so cutting off at 128k doesn't seem high enough to disprove the established research.
Remember that both Easterlin's studies and the one in this article have been done in many countries and not just the US though. The $128k cap may seem limiting for the US but it is not for Nigeria or the other lower-income countries, yet they still show the same patterns.
"The $128k cap may seem limiting for the US but it is not for Nigeria or the other lower-income countries, yet they still show the same patterns."
And that's why the cap for Nigeria is at $8k...
In fact, as someone else has commented: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7047548
"According to the paper (page 13), they only look at incomes between the 10th and 90th percentiles. That's why they cut off at $128,000 for US residents"
In my opinion, ignoring data from the top 10% earners is the perfect way to get plots that seem to disprove a paradox that states "Become rich enough, and a bigger paycheque no longer leads to more happiness".
Re: Money can buy happiness
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
a 5% raise to someone making 1M dollars a year is about as significant to his life as a 5% raise for someone making 100k Are you asserting that as fact? Where I live, someone making 100K is just getting by and not saving very much, even with the 5% raise (he certainly couldn't buy a house), whereas for someone making 1M, the extra $50K is "free" money.
WHERE you live, or HOW you live? I've seen many people complain about not making enough to live where they live, when I clearly see lifestyle changes that would fix the income problem, and I see people living alongside the first who make less and save more. I don't know you. Or your life circumstances. It might not be true for you. But "$100k/year isn't enough to survive" is the kind of claim that I've learned to be…
He didn't say it wasn't enough to survive, it's not enough to really save much if you're living somewhere like SF.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are relatively few people with incomes that high The chart is of household income, not individual income. There are plenty of households who break that mark.
If we ignore many countries where $128K+ is quite rare, at least. In the US, about 14% of the households earn that much or more. However, the breakdown is more interesting here: Only ~1% of households in the US earn between $125-130K, compared to ~5% earning between $35-40K. The groups do become quite a bit less representative as you climb the income scale.
How do they become less representative? The sample groups are exactly representative when they are based on income. e.g. Polling millionaires about their feelings seems pretty representative of millionaires' feelings, even if there aren't that many.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#135Money can buy security and that security increases your happiness. Not having money can make you unhappy. Sustainable happiness is recognizing what is truly valuable in life and appreciating it. For me this is: 1) No debt 2) Full stomach/quenched thirst 3) A warm place to sleep 3) Meaningful intimate loving relationships 4) A sense that I am valuable (adding value to the world or some subset) 5) Freedom to indulge my…
1. No debt is fairly expensive in this world. Either you need a nontrivial income or a fairly high threshold for ascetic living. 2. Full stomach/quenched thirst is trivial if you don't mind tap water and simple starches, but once you add (depending on your taste) a complement of steak, quinoa, fresh fruits, beer and/or wine - then you run into a little money. 3. Warm place to sleep - anywhere near work? public transp…
I have no debt and significant savings/investments but that is because I don’t own a house. We have this social expectation in the USA that one must be a homeowner or they are nobody or haven't made it. Even those who can't afford a house have one. I also paid only 12,000 for my small car that is extra fuel efficient instead of buying an expensive car or SUV even though I could afford one.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is still upwardly mobile. If you have any ambition at all, it's possible to rise. It's not easy , but it's far from impossible. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367903/white-ghetto-ke... This article on the poorest county in the US is very interesting, while they're very poor, it's not like anyone's starving, the food stamp program seems to support them well enough.
Stats actually seem to show that mobility is lower in the US than in the nordic countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_compari... Of course the US is a very different place, too.
Not just lower than the nordic countries but a lot of other countries: "There is more intergenerational mobility in Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, France, and Canada than in the U.S. In fact, of affluent countries studied, only Britain and Italy have lower intergenerational mobility than the United States does."
And also: "In spite of this low mobility Americans have had the highest belief in meritocracy among middle- and high-income countries."
TL;DR: Tell the same lie enough times and people will start believing it.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#137What is happiness? It's pretty subjective, therefore the title isn't even proper, since it assumes a generalization.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a thought experiment. Assume that both neighbourhoods provide the same services.
Does it even matter what your neighbours are making? I've made four figures living among millionaires and I've made six figures living among people living on welfare. I didn't really feel any different in either spot. Challenging yourself to earn more, and actually seeing the numbers rise, is where the joy comes from, at least in my experience. If you are challenging yourself and your income isn't rising (or falling,…
The more well-off people around you are, the less-well-off you are, since their increased wealth increases demand and prices rise. See, for example, Bay Area home prices.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#139Notice Japan - they work too damn much to be satisfied with their lives.
Re: Money can buy happiness
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> money has no effect on happiness past a certain point The question is where that "certain point" is. Obviously happiness as measured on a finite scale must level off somewhere. But apparently "somewhere" is north of $128k/yr.
No, the models proposed by Easterlin is a fundamentally different model of happiness economics than the one proposed by the researchers in the article (I updated my comment to flesh this out a bit). Basically, Easterlin's research hints that happiness increases with income only at a cross-sectional level (by comparing different people at a given time) but not at the longitudinal level (the same people wrt to their ch…
I agree. The first thing I thought was that this framing is really just showing people think they'll be happier with more money, which is the orthodox that the 70K study claims to refute.