Can Money Buy Happiness? Yes, According to Philosophy & Science

It has always been said that Individuals should never measure their happiness by the amount of wealth they possess, but researchers from PNAS beg to differ. In a small study conducted with 200 members, the research team proved that people find more happiness in life when they have more money.

Researchers also studied whether people in lower-income countries benefited more from cash transfers than those in higher-income countries. Results indicated that cash recipients in lower-income countries exhibited significantly more significant SWB improvements than those in lower-income countries.

Improvement in SWB for cash recipients versus control participants was significant within both the lower-income countries and higher-income countries.

Researchers then replaced the country income with the individual household income of the participants. Amounts were converted to the US dollar and adjusted for purchasing power.

Cash recipients with lower incomes showed more significant improvements in SWB. Income within the control group was unrelated to improvements in SWB. Furthermore, participants with annual incomes of $10k would gain almost half of a standard deviation of additional happiness after receiving the cash transfer, and those making $100k would gain nearly a quarter.

Researchers also found that significant benefits were still detectable for those making up to $123k.The study points out that the world’s richest 10% owns 75% of the world’s wealth, while the poorest half only owns 2%.

Can Money Buy Happiness? New Study Reveals Surprising Findings