Money can't buy you love, or so the song goes. But according to a new scientific study, money can buy you happiness. Up to a point, that is.
A Nobel Prize winning psychologist named Daniel Kahneman and his partner, economist Angus Deaton, teamed up to find out if people's emotional well-being (their happiness) increases along with their wealth. They reviewed surveys of 450,000 Americans conducted in 2008 and 2009.
Here's the bottom line. Our happiness apparently does increase along with our income, only up to about $75,000 a year. That doesn't mean that someone who doubles their $100,000 a year salary won't feel a great deal of success and accomplishment. It just doesn't impact their daily mood too much, according to the researchers.
"As an economist I tend to think money is good for you," Deaton said. "And I am pleased to find some evidence for that."
Maybe there's a lesson here. If you have the basic creature comforts covered, you are free to feel happy. If you have food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your head, you've got time and energy to relax and enjoy your life.
In other words, maybe there is such a thing as enough.
