A new study is proving the old adage wrong, arguing that money can buy happiness.
The study comes from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School senior fellow Matthew Killingsworth, who is expanding on his previous research published in 2023 and examines the link between happiness and money.
Bad news for those who aren’t ranking in seven-figure salaries, as the research has found that multimillionaires are much happier than others, and there may be no ceiling to happiness going up with the more money someone makes.
In his 2023 study, Killingsworth debunked the 2010 analysis, which claimed that people’s happiness peaked at an annual income of around $75,000, or about $110,000 when adjusted for today’s inflation.
Instead, Killingsworth’s study found that as people make more money, their happiness does improve. However, his 2023 study was limited because there wasn’t any data for those who make more than $500,000 a year, but now he suggests that happiness rises to even higher levels for the extremely rich.
“The money-happiness curve continues rising well beyond $500,000 a year,” Killingsworth told CBS MoneyWatch in an email. “I think a big part of what’s happening is that when people have more money, they have more control over their lives.”
Killingsworth says those with assets between $3 million and $7.9 million are far more satisfied with their life than those with six-figure incomes.
The researcher said that he suspects there is no clear upper limit and that as someone’s bank account rises, so will their happiness.
“I suspect it’s much more fundamental and psychologically deeper than simply buying more stuff,” he said.
To compile his findings, people participated in surveys where they were asked to rate their life satisfaction from 1 to 7. Those who made around $30,000 or less a year rated their lives an average of 4, while those earning about $500,000 or more rated their lives above 5.
For multimillionaires, the average life satisfaction rating was closer to 6.
When it comes to why wealthy people are reporting higher levels of happiness, Killingsworth says there is too much to take into consideration.
“How wealth and income combine to explain why the wealthy people were so much happier is an open question. I’d guess that having wealth is helpful, but I can’t say for sure,” Killingsworth said, adding that it would be “hard to say” if happiness might eventually plateau.