Society
After reanalysing earlier studies, Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have found that happiness continues to increase with incomes higher than $75,000, contradicting the widely reported idea of a happiness plateau
7 March 2023
People on high incomes can still get happier with more money
Colin Anderson/Blend Images LLC/Getty Images
For most people in the US, more money does seem to increase their happiness – even at incomes above $75,000 a year.
This finding contradicts a widely publicised study from 2010 by Nobel prize-winning economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton at Princeton University. Their research was based on survey data from 1000 people in the US who had been surveyed daily between 2008 and 2009 about their levels of happiness.
It found that the more money someone makes, the happier …