If you want to know the secret to achieving happiness, the answer might be found in your bank account — as long as it’s extremely well-funded.
The link between happiness and money is getting a fresh look from economists and scientists, with new research finding multimillionaires are much happier than the merely well-to-do. In other words, the new study, from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School senior fellow Matthew Killingsworth, indicates that the more money you have, the happier you are — and there may be no ceiling.
Killingsworth’s latest research builds on his 2023 study that debunked a much-cited 2010 analysis claiming people’s happiness peaked at about $75,000 in annual income, or about $110,000 in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars. That 2023 research found that happiness does improve with higher earnings, but because the researchers lacked data for people earning above $500,000, it was unclear whether happiness topped out at that income.
Now, Killingsworth has found that happiness rises to even higher …