Hey, Have You Seen This? The Perfect Salary for Happiness is $75K

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• April 10, 2012
• By Alexis Grant
• 3 Comments

Ever wonder how much money you’d have to make to feel content? Or think you’d be happier if you could just make a few thousand dollars more each year?

The Wall Street Journal reports on a study that shows you can put a dollar figure on happiness.

The bull’s eye? $75,000 a year.

That’s for everyday happiness though, not overall, year-over-year satisfaction (which continues to increase with your income, according to the study).

Details from the piece (or you can read it in full):

As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.

That doesn’t mean wealthy and ultrawealthy are equally happy. More money does boost people’s life assessment, all the way up the income ladder. People who earned $160,000 a year, for instance, reported more overall satisfaction than people earning $120,000, and so on.

“Giving people more income beyond 75K is not going to do much for their daily mood … but it is going to make them feel they have a better life,” Mr. Deaton told the Associated Press.

So what do you think? What’s YOUR perfect salary for happiness?

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