Study: Money Won’t Make You Happy

Here’s an interesting article on the effect of relative income on one’s well-being. Below is an excerpt that highlights some points that probably aren’t too obvious to most:

* Relative income, rather than any certain level of income, affects well-being. If you get richer than your peers, you may feel you’re better off than they are. But soon you’ll make richer new friends, so your relative wealth won’t be greater than it was before.
* People quickly get used to all the new stuff their money can buy.
* The amount of money people say they need rises along with their income.
* When you start making more money, you spend more time making money — and have less leisure time — than you did before. “The activities that higher-income individuals spend relatively more of their time engaged in are associated with no greater happiness, but with slightly higher tension and stressstress,” Kahneman and colleagues note.

Here’s a pretty sad thought: Suppose that 100 people read this article, how many do you think will turn down the higher paying job that comes with longer hours, more stress, a longer commute, etc?