It turns out money does buy happiness, at least, up to US$500,000

MONEY really does buy happiness, and the correlation extends well beyond the US$75,000-a-year salary threshold that had been seen as the upper limit for making an impact. This is according to a team of scientists, including the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist who introduced the idea of a happiness plateau more than a decade ago.

Contentedness does increase steadily in line with incomes, and even accelerates as pay rises beyond US$100,000 a year – as long as the person enjoys a certain baseline level of happiness to begin with.

That is according to the authors’ study of 33,391 people living in the United States, published Mar 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. They say the effect can be observed in salaries up to US$500,000, though they lack conclusive data beyond that level.