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Money Really Is the Secret to Happiness: Wharton Study

Want to be happy? Get ready to pay for that.

A new study from the Wharton School released Tuesday found that the correlation between wealth and happiness does not plateau, but rather as people get richer, they get happier. “The results suggest that the positive association between money and well-being continues far up the economic ladder,” Matthew Killingsworth, a happiness researcher who authored the new study, told Bloomberg. Killingsworth’s research challenges Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman’s 2010 paper, which claimed happiness plateaued when people reached incomes of $60,000-$90,000 a year. Their paper has been widely publicized and cited 1,475 times. Killingsworth’s newest study found that people who have net worths above seven digits scored between 5.5 and 6 points on his 7 point satisfaction index, according to Bloomberg. People who make about $100,000 a year scored 4.6, with people making between $15,000 to $30,000 a year scoring 4 points. “The magnitude of the difference between the low and high end of incomes is gigantic,” Killingsworth told the outlet.