Can money buy happiness? Income may boost emotional well-being more than we thought

RandAlThor@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 211 points –
cbc.ca

Money does indeed buy happiness, and it increases with a bigger paycheque more than economists previously believed, a recent analysis has found.

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Money doesnt buy happiness.

Money buys medical care, that leads to happiness.

It buys good food, which leads to happiness.

it buys shelter and transportation, that leads to happiness.

Having money removes one of the biggest, most miserable stressors in the vast majority of peoples lives.. Which leads to more happiness.

It offers freedom to splurge and do something for yourself, which improves your happiness.

Money cant buy happiness, but money can buy a fuckload of the things you need to give you happiness.

Exactly.

I'm well off enough that I don't have to worry about anything breaking. A new bike, washing machine, even entire kitchen would of course be a nuisance, but not bother me financially.

I also saved enough and live frugal enough that I could easily live years without any income.

That gives me so much more peace of mind. I don't have to worry about getting fired, I don't have to worry about a stolen bike, etc.

A good friend of mine has a good degree, but in a much less comfortable field. She's constantly worried that she might be let go, since she's not earning that much, has to pay back loans and lives in an expensive city. And even she is still privileged, because at least she's not a single mom without formal qualifications.

Money cant buy happiness, but money can buy a fuckload of the things you need to give you happiness.

There’s a small bit of truth in that saying so it makes more sense to phrase it from the opposite perspective: “Money cant buy happiness, but money can fix a fuckload of the things that cause unhappiness.”

Medical care doesn’t lead to happiness, but lack of medical care surely causes unhappiness

Having money means you don’t have to be a complete wage slave. When you’re not afraid of getting fired, when you have means to get by if you’re out of a job, etc. you don’t have to submit to abusive bosses, and you never feel like you’re helpless and can’t leave the place you work.

With enough money, you may not need to work at all.

In a capitalist society, money buys a way out of the always looming menace of the reserve army of labour. Maybe not completely, unless you’re dirty rich, but enough to remove helpless serfdom and slave-like conditions from one’s life.

This statement is only ever said by the truly rich.

At a point, more money can't buy more happiness.

Guess what, economic stability and security buys quite a lot of happiness.

Hapiness is defined differently by different people. Some will be happy by buying trinkets or experiences. Some by having a happy family. Some by being remembered by others. Some by helping others in need. If you aren't the person that wants to buy their hapiness, then no amount of money will help.

Then again, it helps a shitton in all of the above, up to a point.

I think it's better said as "money enables happiness". If you have enough money that your needs are met, then you are free to pursue whatever makes you happy.

Not everybody needs money for happiness though

The whole premise that ‘money can’t buy happiness’ is a tool for the ruling class to try and make the poors become content with their poverty and not try to do anything about the inequality.

What was meant: The endless pursuit of money won't bring you joy.

What we get told: Be happy you even get minimum wage serf.

Well, just look at the World Happiness Report. Always dominated by European countries that also happen to be the world's most equal countries. Financially and otherwise.

It's somewhat realistic. Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain come to mind. It's also kinda shown with the number of people that come into money then fall out of it.

Kinda inverse to me. I think there's a level of financial comfortability that reduces stress and anxiety. Money doesn't buy happiness, but poor buys some very negative emotional responses.

It’s not realistic. The realistic phrase would be ‘excess does not buy happiness’.

Yes we have Anthony Bourdain and Robin Williams as counter examples, but it’s pretty shitty to use their mental health to support a classist tool designed to keep the lower classes quiet. Money doesn’t fix everything because not everything can be fixed, but it definitely does buy a lot of joy and opportunity to live and enjoy living.

I think I made it clear that I thought the situation was more complicated than either position makes it out to be. Having the means to be comfortable and secure matters a lot. After that, though, we have diminishing returns.

I'd be just as happy with one trillion as I'd be with one billion.

I'd be a lot happier with one million than I'd be with one thousand.

I'd say the cap for happiness for me personally is somewehere between 10 and 50 million dollar. Enough to never think about money again.

There was a study a while ago what showed money correlated well with happiness until about 100k/yr of income in the US, at which point it flatlined. I can’t remember how long ago this was and inflation would certainly make that number high today, but it made sense other than that even at the time I thought 100k was a but low for the flatline, but I’ve lived in some of the most expensive areas of the US and in Japan through my life, so I’m sure my experiences are a very skewed.

Part of it was that the study, if you are thinking of the same one as me, referenced the concept that: would you work twice as hard for $100k as you would for $50k? Like if the latter was a 40hr/week job, would you work a 80hr/week one for twice the pay? At some point you start to dip into diminishing returns - like you'll work a bit harder but not TWICE as hard, so after that point, each additional dollar is not worth as much as those before that point.

Which makes perfect sense - like if you could make 100k at 50hrs per week, what's the point of making 200k at 100hrs per week, it's just too stressful to try to keep up?! At some point, with your basic needs met, you are no longer as aggressive at chasing down additional funds, and people would generally prefer to relax a bit, and Quality of Life concerns rise to the foreground over money.

And there's probably other considerations as well, e.g. working for yourself vs. others.

For me that was around the $70K range 4-years ago. Now there's been crazy inflation and I'm at $81K. If I hadn't gone nuts on credit cards, I'd be sitting pretty.

Being the sole income for a family, and having moved past the $100k/yr mark, I will disagree with that conclusion. I do agree that there are diminishing returns, and that does grow the higher you go. But, having the ability to just say "fuck it" and pay for something rather than constantly struggling, shuffling bills around or having to figure out what to cut this month makes life better. Sure, it's not going to magically fix all your problems. But it makes it a damned sight easier to work on those other problems, when you're not constantly stressed about money.

$10 to $50 million in assets can support $400K to $2 million in spending. Also there's extra tax benefits from owning your own house, vacation house, etc. so you spend less money and owe less tax comparatively.

You may actually "spend" very little if you own a farm for fresh food, own a few houses to live in and vacation at, etc. Your "spending" may actually make you money, since you can rent your vacation home when you're not there, sell the fresh food you don't eat. Decorating your house with art and collectibles may make you money.

Having enough money, that the interest alone is enough for not having to work.

So an upper middle class income without a job would be fine. I'd probably still work, but stuff that I really want to.

Money buys options.

If you have more money, typically you have a greater pool of options to choose from in all avenues of life.

When your finances are desperate or non existent, so are your options.

Money doesn't buy happiness but poverty sure buys unhappiness.

Money buys security and stability. The whole "money doesn't buy happiness" schtick is just something rich people tell poor people to keep them in line. Or so they think

Money itself doesn't bring happiness, though, it's just one way of removing roadblocks to happiness.

A person suffering emotional distress and depression won't suddenly be cured when handed a sack of money. Especially if the distress and depression isn't financially motivated.

Our society is particularly monetarily motivated, so a lot of barriers in life are financial. But they are not all the barriers to happiness that exist.

In my experience it's something poor people tell themselves and each other, to the same end.

"Oh hey, we found people who could afford to choose not to work for miserable employers are happier"

who’s “we,” bub

The people responsible for saying the age old idiom: money doesn't buy happiness??? Feel like that was too easy to answer and I'm missing the real question.

Likely the poster is trying to pretend that they already knew this. But it's more likely that they are confusing that they assumed it is true with knowing it.

money can't buy happiness, but misery is priceless...

If this surprises you, you never had to worry about how you are going to pay next month's rent

They must have a mouse in their pocket....who the fuck is we? Rich people?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A paper Kahneman co-authored with Matthew Killingsworth and Barbara Mellers in 2023 concluded that the 2010 research had overstated the plateau effect because it used an unreliable method of measuring happiness from a Gallup survey, which asked study subjects to recall if they smiled the previous day.

"Income might have this protective effect against experiencing certain negative emotions, but it doesn't necessarily bring us joy on a day-to-day basis," he said.

Back in 2017, Jessie Golem, a photographer and videographer from Hamilton, was working four precarious jobs, including one for a volunteer organization that she hoped would open some doors.

When Golem was enrolled in Ontario's basic income pilot program, she was able to focus on her better-paying work as a freelance photographer, knowing her rent would be covered regardless of whether her invoices had been paid promptly.

She said it was satisfying to see her efforts on the business "turning into real-world money," and it helped that she was no longer in a constant state of worry about what she'd do if the car or computer she uses for work broke down.

Eventually, Hu was part of a successful startup that significantly improved his circumstances and launched his lucrative career in software engineering.

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Well, obviously - up to a certain degree at least.

If something breaks and needs to be replaced, having enough money to replace it without needing to then cut back on money used to buy food or whatever is great. Imagine for example your car broke down and you'd have to save months to be able to afford a repair.

But beyond being able to afford basic needs, good food and the likes (and also go out every now and then), I'd say having more money/income has diminishing returns.

I'm by no means rich, but I realized after a few paycheck raises when I was at a level where it didn't bother me much when things needed to be replaced or where a small price increase for items at the supermarket didn't concern me anymore, that then adding more money to that doesn't really boost my emotional well-being by a lot anymore.

One area where I realize that from time to time is my computer. I upgrade some part of it at least once or twice a year. But I rarely upgrade/change anything about my computer because I'm unhappy about something, it's mostly me falling for marketing and hype I suppose. I got a 3080 at launch day (for a relatively normal price of 799,-€ back then), and of course I thought it was a great card, but when I tested out some used GPUs I organized for family/friends during the pandemic I didn't really mind. I checked out a GTX 1060 for a few days and I honestly didn't even think about having downgraded to a 1060 from a 3080 after an hour or two. I obviously had to lower the graphics settings of most games, but they ran well enough and I enjoyed gaming as much as ever.

That being said, if my GPU was a 1060 today, I'd probably be a lot less happy compared to 2021, because quite a few modern titles are borderline unplayable with a 1060. But even today, I don't think I'd enjoy gaming less with say a Radeon 6600 XT.

So, there's a certain threshold that also depends a lot on what your hobbies actually are. Gaming is relatively cheap compared to I don't know ... racing cars on a race track. So if that's one of your hobbies, your threshold might be higher than mine, if it's drawing it might be lower etc.

No shit? Well next they'll be telling us private healthcare maybe wasn't the super best idea we've ever had and that good things are better than bad things! Truly preposterous!

Money can't buy happiness but it can buy your preferred form of misery.

I guess that sense of agency over our suffering is a kind of happiness.