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Originally Posted by willravel
Liq - I do see what you're saying and I agree, which is why it'd be important to actually see how "happiness" stacks up against income. Once one could get a decent comparo going, then we could say "money doesn't mean happiness" or "30% of people above x income are happy".
This is absolutely true, but it's really the only method by which someone can put fourth "factual" evidence about happiness right now. In reality, happiness is WAY too subjective and the esoteric studies that include good data really can't help anyone.
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I saw a study a few years back regarding happiness and wealth. I really just skimmed it so things like baselines etc... I really can't speak about. But the bottom line of the study was it found the happiest people, least in the US, were people whose household income for a family of , I think, four was between 75K-100K. It was several years back so this would have been upper middle class, but certainly not rich by any means.
After reading through it a couple things stuck in my head. One, it's really hard to be happy if you're worried you might end up living in your car in the near future, even harder if you think you might not even have a car for shelter. Basically there's a level of income needed simply to survive on a day to day basis, without it happiness is not really an option. And two, having a shit load of money does not make you happy. Having more and more material things will not bring you happiness. In fact the study basically said really wealthy people tend to be less happy then the middle class.