Can Money Buy Happiness? Why or Why Not?

A common lesson taught to children early in their life is that money can’t buy happiness. But the scenario in the United States and other parts of the world is different. Researchers have found the answer to how can money buy happiness for higher-income people because it may improve day-to-day well-being and increase happiness after all.

Over the past century, scientists, psychologists, and economists have banded together to sort out that how can money buy happiness for many people.

Read more: Tony Robbins: Do These 6 Important Things With Your Money Before the 30s

Does Money Buy Happiness?

The exact answer to this question still is a matter of huge debate. Being an eternal question, so many discussions are there so the answers are.

If you see the perspectives of rich people where they say money can’t buy happiness. On the other hand, people who are not rich say money can solve all their problems.

Who is more right here? In behavioral economics, it is said that there is a strong relationship between money and happiness. But how much is enough to make them happy? In a study of

Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton 1o year before they concluded that the appropriate amount of money especially in the United States to make a person feel comfortable and happy is $75,000 per year.

Researchers asked 4, 50000 Americans to rate their lives and income on a scale of 1 for the worst and 10 for the best.

This research explained that  There are some obvious differences in the scores of income.  People in America have lower scores on their happiness in life and they are more likely to feel frustrated under pressure whose annual income is less than $75,000.

However, the scenario is that as income increases, people feel fewer negative effects, and personal feedback becomes more positive.

Top 3 Reasons Why Money Can Buy Happiness?

A senior fellow at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Matt Killingsworth, conducted a study which was based on  1,725,994 samples pulled from 33,391 employed adults in the United States.

The study’s author, Matthew Killingsworth, a senior scholar at Penn’s Wharton School, told Medical Press. However, when I looked at a wide range of income levels, I discovered that all measures of well-being increased as income increased.

I don’t see a bend in the curve, an inflection point where money becomes irrelevant. Instead, it continues to rise.”

The study focused on experiential well-being, or how you feel at specific times in your life, rather than evaluative well-being, or how you feel after more thought.

According to previous research, while a higher income normally enhances your life appraisal, your emotional well-being plateaus after a salary of $75,000. However, rather than focusing on how participants felt at the time, this study focused on how they remembered feeling throughout the day.

1. Money can bring happiness in the sense that it can financially support basic needs and stability, but not much more, which means that multimillionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are considerably wealthier than the rest of us, but not all that happy. The only problem with this concept is that it’s untrue, and we’d all be much happier if we had millions of dollars.
2. It’s worth remembering that money isn’t everything. Being affluent does not imply that you are pleased. There are a lot of other things that are just as valuable. A researcher asked participants how important money is to them in a study published by the National Academy of Science. They reported that money isn’t really significant to them, and that it doesn’t even predict their happiness. It is achievable to earn a small amount of money like a billionaire does and still be quite happy.
3. Having more money gives you more options in how you conduct your life. This is most likely visible in the pandemic. People who live paycheck to paycheck may be forced to take the first available job to stay afloat if they lose their employment, even if it is one they despise. Those who have the financial means to do so can wait for one that is a better fit. “Having more money provides a person more choices and a stronger sense of autonomy in both big and minor actions,” Killingsworth told Medical Press.

Bottom line

The findings, which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explained the question beautifully can money buy happiness. Having more money gives people a greater sense of control over life.

Even for the wealthy whose income is over $75,000, they continue to bring happiness to them. But anyone who equated financial success with personal success was unhappy. Research said It’s especially bad if you don’t make a lot of money.

However, there doesn’t appear to be any point where equating personal achievement with financial success is a healthy thing.

Because having more money is wonderful, but fixating on it and using it to define your self-worth is probably not.