Most people say they'd need a significant pay raise and considerable wealth to achieve contentment, a new poll shows.

Does happiness have a price? For a majority of Americans, the answer is yes — but it doesn’t come cheap.

About 6 in 10 of Americans believe money can buy happiness, according to a new poll from financial services firm Empower. Yet to achieve happiness through financial means, most people say they’d need a significant raise, as well as a big chunk of money in the bank.

Median household income in the U.S. stands at about $74,000 annually, but respondents told Empower that they’d need to earn roughly $284,000 each year to achieve happiness.

And as for wealth, Americans said they’d need even more in the bank to feel content: $1.2 million, to be exact, the poll found. Many people are wealthier than they were a few years ago, thanks to the rise in real estate and stock market values, yet the median net worth of U.S. households stood at $192,900 in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve.

  • FuglyDuckEnglish
    23•1 year ago

    It can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy stuff that makes you happy.

    Like, not having to worry about the choice between rent and fiod, or car loan and electrical bill. (Not to mention all the other stuff that’s pretty fun, too.)

      • FuglyDuckEnglish
        12•1 year ago

        ever been without electricity? Some homes, no power means no heat, no cooking, no internet. it’s just a shell that’s nominally warmer than the outside. Stressing about simply surviving is going to pretty much make anybody unhappy. so not having to worry about paying those bills… perhaps it’s best to say, buying relief from unhappiness?

        • @otp@sh.itjust.works
          6•1 year ago

          Yeah. Relief from unhappiness is a much better way to put it. Happy is not the same as not-sad.

          Finding happiness in life usually goes beyond “having the bare minimum of my basic needs met”.

      • @SCB@lemmy.world
        8•1 year ago

        When you have repeatedly had to choose between having power or water for a given month, not having to do that makes you very happy.

        • @otp@sh.itjust.works
          2•1 year ago

          I think the removal of a negative stimulus is a different kind of emotion than the addition of a positive stimulus.

          I get where y’all are coming from. I really do.

          I still think it’s a misrepresentation of what “Money doesn’t buy happiness” means.

          And yes, studies do show that money does buy (read: positively correlate with) happiness. Not just what this study seems to be reporting by asking people what they want, but by actually examining for correlations. It does seem to max out at a number far lower than a lot of politicians and C-suite execs are making though.

          I’m not saying “Money doesn’t buy happiness”. I’m just saying that “Buying things that make you happy” is different from “Meeting basic human needs in the modern world”.