Apparently there was a study done and your happiness levels out. Like if you got a big pay bump you'd be happier for a while but then back to baseline.

My boss used this to say that we don't need raises. I asked if we could prove it and me and her swap pays. She laughed and brushed me off.

Money does buy you happiness. It just has diminishing returns.

So the best way to maximize happiness is to take the money from those that have maximized its effect and give it all to the poor.

Money buys you the luxury of beeing in the position where money can't contribute to your happiness any longer.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

How does one obtain food, shelter, healthcare, a basic sense of security by having a stable and safe living space?

Oh thats right, you obtain all that with money, obtaining those things without money is either functionally impossible for the vast majority of people, or literally a crime.

Yeah, adding an infinite amount of money to one person doesn't meaningfully impact their ability to get those first two layers figured out.

Distributing money such that everyone has those two base layers... is quite literally the foundation for a happy, stable, productive society.

Liquidate the billionaires... assets, of course.

I'm all but certain the whole "money can't buy happiness" shtick is just classist propaganda to keep the peasants poor by trying to build some kind of weird pride in staying poor.

Money can buy freedom, and while freedom doesn't guarantee happiness, it's a pretty fucking important ingredient.

Yes. Financial independence would give ample time for me to escape abuse but alas, I'm trapped under family's false insights and paranoia.

"Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable."

~~Clare Boothe Luce

I do have terrible crushing problems money can't solve.

but I would be a hell of a lot happier with lowish 6 figures a year.

Meh. I grew up dirt poor, and I am now what past me would have considered successful.

Funny thing about it, though, I'm still me. I'm that same dirt poor teenager, just older. It didn't change me like I thought it would.

Absolutely, the lack of money will make you unhappy. Without a doubt. But I've never got a 20% raise and felt 20% happier. You're always gonna be who you are, money or not.

The thing is, it's true that money can't buy you happiness. I can guarantee you that I would still be depressed after a salary increase. I actually think the majority of wealthy people are fucking miserable.

However, money can buy you a lot of other helpful shit and its importance should not be downplayed.

But I have always interpreted "Money can't buy happiness" to mean that accumulating wealth beyond what you need to survive and be comfortable won't actually make your life meaningfully better. And that's true. Happiness levels off after a certain level of wealth.

"Money can't buy happiness" is a warning only intended for people who already have enough money to meet their basic needs. It's bad faith to say it to people who are struggling financially. It's kind of like saying, "Food won't bring you happiness." It has a different meaning depending on whether you are saying it to an emotional overeater or someone who is starving and malnourished.

Money isn't sufficient for happiness, but it's usually necessary.

Money absolutely does buy happiness until you're in middle class and in a fulfilling job. (If you're rich but in a shit job, it means you might have the option to work less or look for a better position.)

Money does not buy you happiness applies to people who are already rich and are looking for money to fulfill needs way high on the Maslow hierarchy. In fact, much of the tyranny and cruelty within stratified social systems comes from miserable rich people believing they should be happy due to their vast wealth and power yet are not. And our capitalist society has messages everywhere that promise that a new car, (yacht, vacation, lover, religion, etc.) will totally fulfill them and they don't.

I mean we've had three billionaires shoot themselves into space. If that's not an obvious plead to the gods or the cosmos for a taste of nirvana I don't know what is.

Curiously, this is a thing that Jesus (and every other divine-ish wise guy) knew about: If we give away our vast fortune and live simply with that experience and wisdom, fulfillment comes. But it means overcoming greed for wealth and power, which is quicker, easier, more seductive.

ETA: For those of us outside the ownership class, though, money improves our base Maslow hierarchy (better housing, HVAC, better water, better food) and gets us out of precarity (or worse, scarcity) which make us desperate and miserable (which accounts completely for elevated crime in poor neighborhoods). Money buys us out of that hell hole. The only thing better than not being there is to also have the perspective of not being there, which can lead to maybe helping others behind you out... Unless you're Clarence Thomas. (He's a very special case.)

Money probably really doesn't make you happy. Most of the things that make me happy have nothing to do with me being able to buy crap I don't need.

But that dumb sentiment hides the fact that a lack of money can definitely make you miserable.

Only the people that never had stress over dentist of vet bills will suggest money is somehow not a massive factor in determining your quality of life in a capitalist society.

As the saying goes, money can't buy you happiness but a lack of money can buy you a lot of misery. Enough money for a comfortable lifestyle, anything over that and we enter ego validation territory.

A few years ago I was stealing water from a construction site so my partner and I could flush the toilet. Parked in a development lot in the middle of the night, watching for security guards while I filled a bunch of plastic organizer bins in the back of a van.

We were several years into a total financial crashout from a combination of major health problems, deaths in the family, and a floundering job market. Things are better now, but I can say at least that I know now what it feels like to lose everything and claw your way back out of the hole. I don't recommend it, it sucks.

Our nation doesn't want you to succeed. Remember that. In order for the wealthy to stay wealthy, there has to be a class of people who have less or nothing so that money retains value. We're the richest fucking nation that's ever existed, many times over, so if we really wanted we could end poverty, we could end hunger and disease and make a glorious world where everyone is comfortable and able to aim for their own dreams without risk of losing everything and having to steal water to flush the fucking the toilet.

We're not in that world for the simple reason that a tiny fraction of people want to have things and they want other people to envy them.

"Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery." - Spike Milligan

Money can't buy you happiness. But stress due to lack of money destroys people. Working as a volunteer at a homeless shelter has taught me that atleast here in the Netherlands quite some of them stay homeless not because there are no options to get of the street, but because with these options comes all the stress of having to pay the bills. That goes to show how rough it must be to live with financial stress, because living on the street itself is terribly rough, and still some prefer it.

*pay increase above actual inflation/bill increases.

My pay has gone up every year, but each year I end up poorer as my bills eat the extra, plus some more!

Money of course can buy happiness. Can subcribe to YT Music forever, can pay for therapy, can pay for everything. :,-)

I more think it's impressive they manage to still be unhappy with absolutely no reason to be so.

Honestlyyyy.

My biggest issue rn is credit card debt. My dog needed multiple surgeries and my car needed fixed. I have 2 maxed out cards and no interest until November. It's only like 6k to pay off, but it's still overwhelming because I've never had to deal with this type of thing before. I think I can get it all paid off before November, but it's still a daunting task.

Rip my fun summer plans.

I'm really pissed of this "I'm sad 'cause I'm poor. So if I had money I would be happy."

(Poverty imply sadness) does not imply (wealth imply hapiness). That's basic formal logic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition The Contraposition is (not sadness imply not poverty). So, If you are happy, you have money.

Expressed differently, if all the poor are sad, we can state that a happy person is not poor. But we cannot state anything about a rich person being happy or not.

Money alone can't buy happiness, but it sure helps with the down payment.

This image post could have been a text post.

Ya the only people who say this bullshit are those that have never experienced hard ship before.