Vapid Study of the Day

What’s the most expensive real estate in the world? At roughly $75,000 per square foot ($95,000 for a full page ad, one page running about 1.5 square feet), I’d say a page of the New York Times. Why is the most expensive real estate in the world being used to report on a story that finds that money can’t buy happiness?

Is it crazy to question how much money you need to be happy? The notion that money can’t buy happiness has been around a long time — even before yoga came into vogue. But it turns out there is a measurable connection between income and happiness; not surprisingly, people with a comfortable living standard are happier than people living in poverty.

The catch is that additional income doesn’t buy us any additional happiness on a typical day once we reach that comfortable standard. The magic number that defines this “comfortable standard” varies across individuals and countries, but in the United States, it seems to fall somewhere around $75,000. Using Gallup data collected from almost half a million Americans, researchers at Princeton found that higher household incomes were associated with better moods on a daily basis — but the beneficial effects of money tapered off entirely after the $75,000 mark.

Now, I happen to agree with the premise (money doesn’t buy happiness) but shouldn’t that paragraph cause us to do a double-take? Isn’t there a small conflict between “‘comfortable standard’ varies across individuals and countries” and “collected from almost half a million Americans”?

Let’s zoom in to the Times’s backyard. In Manhattan a $75,000 a year income (coincidentally, the average income there) will get you a studio apartment, to and from work via subway, and a modest lifestyle. BTW, if you need evidence that there are, indeed, two Americas you need look no farther than Manhattan. The median income for a white non-Hispanic family with children in Manhattan is nearly $300,000 per year while the median income for Manhattan, generally, is around $50,000 per year.

Contrast that with Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There the median income is around $30,000 and an annual income of $75,000 will buy a nice house with a nice yard in a dramatically less crime-prone environment. Both Manhattan and Baton Rouge are within handy distance of the ocean, although I strongly suspect that people in Baton Rouge are more likely to enjoy the prospect of sunning themselves on the beach there than Manhattan residents are on their shores.

How happy are they, comparatively speaking? Some evidence that the happiness of people in those two places is roughly comparable. There is also evidence (same link) of a correlation between happiness and income.

IMO people living in Manhattan and people living in Baton Rouge and living in different countries at least as much as people living in Manhattan and people living in London are. Maybe more so.

What brings happiness? I don’t know but I strongly suspect that we should be very cautious when trying to compare the happiness of different individuals. I’m reminded of the line from Cactus Flower: “Freedom is the most important thing in the world to me after I’ve eaten.”

I think that after you’re housed, fed, and clothed your happiness depends on a lot of things including the people you’re with, doing something you think is worthwhile, feeling as though you’re a part of something significant, and, importantly, the capacity for happiness you have created over the course of your life. Health is important, too. You don’t need to be an Olympic athlete to be happy (at least I don’t) but I think that being reasonably pain-free and not sidelined by some debilitating disease helps.

There are people who despite being sick, in searing pain, starving, clothed in rags, and exposed to the elements are nonetheless both sane and happy. But they are rare. We call them “saints”.

I think that undertaking responsibilities, doing things for other people, and having a broad base of experiences build a capacity for happiness. Two different containers may both be full but the larger container still holds the most.

12 comments… add one
  • sam Link

    What brings happiness?

    This is a start:

    “He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, and he deprived me”. Those who harbor such thoughts will not be free from hatred.

    “He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, and he deprived me”. Those who do not harbor such thoughts will be free from hatred.

    Hatred never ceases through hatred in this world, but ceases through not hating only. This is an eternal law.

  • Similarly,

    But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

  • michael reynolds Link

    If you wanna be happy
    For the rest of your life,
    Never make a pretty woman your wife,
    So from my personal point of view,
    Get an ugly girl to marry you.

    My wife heard me singing this once and said, “You’re implying that I’m ugly.” Fortunately I had the rare presence of mind to answer, “What makes you think I’m happy?”

  • The exception that proves the rule.

  • jan Link

    A line taken from Communication with God:

    “Happiness is not created as a result of certain conditions. Certain conditions are created as a result of happiness.”

  • Icepick Link

    Do they bother to define happiness?

    Everyone knows what the story is: Money can’t buy happiness, but lack of money can buy heeping loads of misery. It’s about the only thing you CAN buy with a lack of money.

  • steve Link

    Come on, it’s a warm gun.

    Steve

  • michael reynolds Link

    Ice:

    I’ve always thought this, from Mr. Micawber, (Dickens) summed it up:

    “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

  • Icepick Link

    Reynolds, that does not jibe with your idea that Obama is doing a good job.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Good or bad for me is all relative.

    Let’s put it all on the Hitler-Jesus morality scale. (With Hitler being evil, and Jesus representing good, in case there’s any confusion.) I put Obama substantially closer to Jesus than to Hitler. Of course, I’d say the same about Mitt Romney. Which is not to say that either is Jesus. On that scale I’d say Obama is two notches closer to Jesus.

    On the Homer Simpson-Steve Jobs competence scale I’d have Obama right around the mid-point. Did some things right but not spectacularly. Did some things wrong, but we’re still not radioactive. I have a hard time judging Romney on this since he refuses to admit he did the one significant thing he ever did.

    On the Mitt Romney-Howard Stern scale of honesty, I have Obama closer to Howard, while Romney is, sadly, Romney. I think Obama is slick and arrogant and will lie convincingly on occasion. But I think Romney is a complete and utter fraud of a human being. Romney is like a badly-written fictional character.

    Some day if I live another 100 years I’ll be offered a choice between Hitler/Homer/Mitt on the one hand and Jesus/Steve/Howard. But so far it’s been Nixon and McGovern, Ford and Carter, Reagan and Carter, Bush 1 and Dukakis, Bush 1 and Clinton, Clinton and Dole, Gore and Bush 2, Kerry and Bush 2, and Obama and McCain. (From memory, so I probably missed someone.)

    Twice in my life I got choices where I felt I got more than I could have asked for: when I met my wife, and when we adopted our daughter. (The son was sperm-and-egg lotto, no choice.) Aside from those two occasions, it’s all been meh vs. ick.

  • My Daddy was Joseph the carpenter, and leaned toward the Judaic school of thought. Happiness in not the point of life.

    Do your duties. Do unto others, etc. Make yourself useful.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Happiness comes in abandoning all concern for what we call life, for being in the world but not of it. Once we accept that ultimately nothing has any sort of meaning (not your job, not your wealth, not the number of women you have sex with) we become free from the stress, worry, anxiety and sense of not measuring up which hold us in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction.

    Basically you can find real happiness if you do what Jesus and the Buddha said to do a couple thousand years ago.

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