[derekp7]

Is this net income (after taxes, and possibly after 401k [or equivalent] savings)?

I would say that having no debt, or at least having manageable debt, along with knowing you are saving enough for retirement, and making enough that you don't have to second-guess if you can afford every purchase you make, is the real cutoff.

For example, if you don't have mortgage debt then you are probably renting. So I consider mortgage "manageable" debt, along with any short-term debt that you can pay off within a year.

The other thing to consider, is life is full of stress-inducing "things" (situations, people, material objects, etc). Often times throwing money at the stress makes the stress lower or go away. So if you make enough where you can throw money at most of your stress and not break the bank, then that would greatly impact your happiness.

[ChuckMcM]

I would not be surprised if you were exactly right with this: I would say that having no debt, or at least having manageable debt, along with knowing you are saving enough for retirement, and making enough that you don't have to second-guess if you can afford every purchase you make, is the real cutoff.

Many people I have talked with about happiness are really talking about non-anxiety. Basically defining being 'happy' as having zero anxiety and being 'un-happy' as worrying about (anxious) one or more things.

In that model not having debt relieves future obligation anxiety, owning a house addresses 'where will I live' anxiety, savings address 'what if something comes up' anxiety etc.

If that model held true for the survey participants then once you had enough income to offset your anxieties you would not get any more 'happy'.

[tachyoff]

What a sad indictment of modern American life that our baseline for happiness is "not destitute". Really, I think that's telling, and as a millennial with lots of student loan debt and friends in a similar boat, it's not surprising one bit.

[onion2k]

Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who lived ~3000 years ago, figured out that key to happiness was having somewhere to live, friends around you, someone to have sex with, and lots of food. He summed it up in a line: "Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." The notion that baseline happiness is equivalent to 'not destitute' really isn't modern, or American.

[matte_black]

Why should it be any higher?

Raise the baseline too high and you may never reach it, and never be happy, despite having a good life. Is that what you want?

[tachyoff]

> Why should it be any higher?

Because it can be. Because we’re the richest country in the world and yet for some reason we force people into bankruptcy because they didn’t have health insurance on the day they had a medical emergency.

I want:

1. People not to have to worry about seeing a doctor because they can’t afford it.

2. People not to have to worry about having shelter.

3. People not to have to worry about where their next meal will come from.

4. People to be able to provide a solid, basic, decent life for themselves and their families.

5. People to be able receive an education without it being onerously expensive.

Among other things.

I don’t think these are intractable problems for a civilization that sent people to the moon, perform open heart surgery, and deliver energy consistently and safely to millions of people.

[erentz]

You actually seem to be pretty much in agreement with the person you originally replied to. I only read you as calling out a few more specific examples of what causes anxiety but it’s completely possible they are encapsulated in quote “etc.”.

[tachyoff]

My point is that if those needs are met, then happiness becomes a question of what personally makes you happy and not just what you need to not be homeless.

[mherrmann]

> Because we’re the richest country in the world

Are you? When I just Googled "richest country in the world", not a single result placed the US in #1.

[uiri]

Yeah, I don' think that statement holds up to scrutiny at all.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the median salary in the US was higher than the median salary in Luxembourg/Ireland/Singapore/Brunei/oil-rich-middle-east. Along with a lower tax burden resulting in higher net pay.

[odammit]

I assumed they meant largest economy?

[taneq]

I don't think it's just that that's our baseline, I think it's a ceiling. I think they're saying "if you're not destitute, more stuff won't make you happier". Overall, in the long term.

[thrav]

It’s why the Danish are always ranked the happiest. They know the government won’t let them become destitute.

[hinkley]

I feel like there’s some Maslow’s heirarchy things going on here. Once you get over the non destitute thing you can spend your energy on being fulfilled.

[ksec]

>Many people I have talked with about happiness are really talking about non-anxiety.

This sums up pretty much.

It is not the Money ($) i need. But what I think is rather basic things to live.

A place called Home. It doesn't have to be free, it could be even be rented that I dont own it. But it should be affordable, without being anxious about Landlord kicking you out, or hike the rent to a ridiculous level so you cant continue to live. It shouldn't take your entire working life, 25 - 30 years of continuously working and giving 40% of your salary, what if you are sick in between this 30 years? What if you were fired? This whole living burden is what causes people anxious, and hence do not risk into taking another higher paid job and move up the ladder. The stagnation of wages.

I dont need a house, just a small flat, 150 Square Feet will do, with an open kitchen and a small toilet and shower. The whole flat is probably the size of many Americans's houses bath room. Hopefully along with Water pipes that doesn't include heavy metal like lead poisoning, hot water system that could shower longer then 3 min in Winter. Is that too much to ask for? I am not calling for free housing, but one that is affordable.

Food is Cheap, I used to live in UK with less then 1.5 pound budget per day. Good Quality clothes are actually not expensive in terms of production cost, most are rent, labour and marketing. And Medical is affordable if you have insurance.

So Food, Medical and Clothes are actually easily affordable in most developed countries. ( Name be one place that it isn't ) As long as you have a job. Any job in fact, even labour intensive job or lower end jobs could easily afford all of these.

So out of all the basic needs in Maslow thoery, shelter is the most expensive, most unaffordable, and also most anti competitive. But all government are very happy with that, as it is basically modern slavery.

[Nition]

I suspect there is another level above that at financial independence, where you have enough wealth that you don't have to work. Where you can lose the fear of losing your job, or go off and work on what you want even if it doesn't make much or any money.

[dreamfactored]

That's a level you can contribute to by being frugal. It's tough to get to but easier than you'd think. The barriers to moving to this level tend to be as much social and psychological as financial e.g. families, mortgages, need for security.

The next level above financial independence is financial freedom (you can just get whatever you want, from shoes to houses) - off the top of my head I would guess this is probably around the 0.01%, which would be about 32k people in the USA. As an example of freedom, these people can buy nationality and avoid immigration limitations (going rate is ~$1-5m).

The article is way off just comparing salaries. There are 3 social classes in terms of having a meaningful lifestyle distinction - those who have to work for someone else, those who don't, and those who have full freedom to decide where they go and what they do each day. All they did was compare a bunch of people in the same social class (somewhat shockingly the Romans considered this equivalent to a slave class).

[Qwertious]

>That's a level you can contribute to by being frugal.

J suspect that ceteris paribus, being frugal reduces happiness - by definition, it's not getting things you want to get.

[derekp7]

Who is happier, the person who always wants, and always buys what they want? Or the one who learns to not want so much, and is therefore always satisfied?

[ToJans]

"the chase is better than the catch"

Once you can afford something that was way out of reach before, you buy it and after the first few moments you realize it is not as great as you expected. Do this a few times, and you'll learn what is important. The more wealthy people I know do have a slightly above average car and house, but IME the biggest difference is that they have far more extreme - both in amount and in price - experiences, i.e. weekend trips, fine wining and dining etc.

[dreamfactored]

Maybe financial independence isn't for you. It doesn't suit most people in fact - most choose the greater financial security and predictability of a decent job. This is very helpful if you are an entrepreneur as you can hire people much smarter and more able than yourself.

Higher earners tend to just upgrade and spend more (apartment, clothes, restaurants, hotels etc), and aren't really living that differently - that lifestyle can certainly soak up maximum income achievable in a salaried job.

I think this is what the article inadvertently pointed to, that the higher salaries could lead to a sense of frustration that nothing really changed.

[cortesoft]

There might be a fine line there; humans need a sense of purpose, and for many people, purpose is tied up in our job.

If you no longer have to work, and you choose not to work because your current job isn't ideal, it can be hard to get the motivation to search for a new job. At the same time, without work, it can be hard to find purpose.

So you might be stuck in a situation where you aren't working and struggling to find meaning.

[cimmanom]

But just because you don't have to work doesn't mean you can't work.

If you have financial independence, you have the choice to work or not, and if you do work, to do whatever work you find most meaningful.

Without financial independence, you have no choice but to work, and for the vast majority of people without financial independence there isn't much choice of what kind of work to do either.

[leggomylibro]

That seems like a cultural thing, though - many Western cultures wrap up personal identity in job description, but there's nothing biological to stop people from just laying out a purpose for themselves and pursuing it.

There are plenty of financial reasons, but isn't that what we're talking about? If you have enough money that you don't have to work for the rest of your life, you probably have enough money that you can spend your time on whatever act of creation you find fulfilling.

[adventured]

> many Western cultures wrap up personal identity in job description, but there's nothing biological to stop people from just laying out a purpose for themselves and pursuing it.

That's just as common in many other non-Western cultures, such as Japan, South Korea, China. All three are materialistic and work-centric. Japan has extreme work identity, South Korea is barely a notch lower than Japan on that. Both put the US - and the entire West - to shame on work-centric life (for better or worse depending on your views on such things). China today is one of the greatest materialistic work cultures that has ever existed. You see it in all of China's markets and businesses today, and the move from rural to urban to seek greater materialism and elevated work identity. It's an intense fever there, eg:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/china-plans-bu...

[Barrin92]

>That seems like a cultural thing, though - there's nothing biological to stop people from laying out a purpose for themselves and pursuing it.

Purpose without existential risk of failure is not usually perceived as genuine.

If you have enough money and only put a fraction of it to use, you might create things, but you're never really risking anything. I'd wager more people join the military for purpose than the local paintball team, not despite but because the former really puts your life at risk.

[TuringTest]

> Purpose without existential risk of failure is not usually perceived as genuine.

Says who? That may be associated with lutheran ethics of hard work, but doesn't look like an universal nor an essential requirement. Was Mother Theresa devoid of purpose because there's no way she could fail at taking care of people?

[onion2k]

for many people, purpose is tied up in our job

That's certainly the line that society wants people to believe. A lot of people want a job that gives them a sense of purpose, but I'd be surprised if as much as 2% of the workforce think their job gives them a sense of purpose right now. I think we're just lucky that the majority of people don't question whether or not their job is ultimately necessary, and choose not to bother when they realise it's a waste of time.

[GFischer]

Indeed, after a point, working is not motivated by wealth - I know several cases of people that are wealthy and don't NEED to work, but they're in high-power positions and they don't want to leave that.

One of them was the president of an insurance company and he was ousted in a Machiavellian political maneuver, because he fully expected to hold that position until his health failed him or he died at the post.

You can see it in the current crop of 80-year old politicians in my country. One of them wants to go up for re-election and he would be in power until he was 90 years old...

[Nition]

Personally I have so many projects I want to work on (where the motivation is making a Good Thing rather than getting rich) that I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be the case for me. But I can see it being the case for others.

[dreamfactored]

You can have as much purpose as a cat or you can build bridges, write poetry, study philosophy, invent new things, and help the poor. Your choice might not fit in with how you saw yourself but that's a higher level problem.

[AFNobody]

> At the same time, without work, it can be hard to find purpose.

Volunteering and creative experimentation fills that gap just fine.

[Godel_unicode]

For you. Parent clearly disagrees.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>Is this net income (after taxes, and possibly after 401k [or equivalent] savings)?

No, it's before tax income.

Income Variables. Participants were asked to report monthly household income rather than yearly income to facilitate responding. Respondents were asked the question, “What is your total monthly household income in [local currency], before taxes? Please include income from wages and salaries, remittances from family members living elsewhere, farming, and all other sources.” Households were defined as a person’s home that had its own cooking facilities, which could have been anything ranging from a one-room flat to a single house.

From the study's supplementary information: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...

[dgacmu]

It's also worth noting that it's normalized to household size -- income divided by sqrt(household size). So for a married couple with two children -- a number close to my own heart -- the 105k satiation point would be real dollars of 210k/year.

Dollars are also represented as International Dollars, which are adjusted for the local purchasing power, expressed in units equivalent to one USD in the US.

[sjg007]

That makes sense. It's a lot and doesn't go very far in the Bay area but it makes things better than just 105k-120k for a family of 4 which can work but can be stressful.

[foxylad]

My last child got a good job today, and as well as a certain pride I feel a sense of relief similar to when we paid off our mortgage.

[O_nlogn]

Congratulations! That is one of life's greatest milestones -- and yet we don't have a common term for it.

I'm my parents' last child and am soon to graduate Grad school and enter 'the working world'. I can definitely feel their relief in knowing decades of parental sacrifices and obligations have paid off and finally come to an end.

Savour that pride and relief -- you've earned it.

[fhood]

I can't agree more. My ultimate financial goal is to have enough money to pay other people to do all the things I hate for me.

[Density]

What do you hate and why can't you automate it?

[mac01021]

Seriously?

Cooking, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, driving to places, filling out tax returns, shopping for clothes or household goods....

Fully automated solutions for any of the above either do not exist or are prohibitively expensive.

[js8]

Why have kitchen/house/lawn/car at all when you don't actually enjoy using them?

The alternatives are not prohibitively expensive, on the contrary. You have restaurants, apartments, parks and public transport as alternatives.

It seems to me that quite some people here want to get rich to afford hiring people to manage things that they don't actually want to own. That's why I think more money doesn't make you more happy, as happiness comes from the sense of accomplishment, not from being able to command an army of workers to work on things you don't care about.

[bhaak]

> It seems to me that quite some people here want to get rich to afford hiring people to manage things that they don't actually want to own.

That's often due to them actually wanting those things but not for themselves but for showing them off as status markers.

[flukus]

How many of those do you hate simply because you're time poor? If other necessities were met so you didn't have to work would you still hate them?

I'd still hate the tax returns, but others like cooking and mowing I enjoy when I'm free of time constraints.

[Kiro]

Not OP but I have a lot of time and cooking is probably the thing I hate the most in my life after cleaning. I don't enjoy it at all.

[robotresearcher]

Folding laundry.

Robots are miserably bad at this, so far.

[spodek]

There are clothes that don't need folding and lifestyles that don't need clothes that need folding.

[rconti]

well, I take "folding" to mean "putting away". Eg, putting your socks in a drawer (usually balled up together, but I guess you could just toss individuals in there).. hanging up tshirts and sweatshirts, putting away your jeans and workout clothes..

Some kind of organization is ideal, because I often live out of the clean laundry hamper and it's a chore to hunt for stuff every time you need clothes.

[tmnvix]

When I'm not living with others, this problem goes away. I start out with things in the wardrobe and drawers but as I get distracted by the things I actually want to do I gravitate towards a sort of inbox(clean)/outbox(dirty) 'floordrobe' system. It's surprisingly efficient.

[robotresearcher]

I wear a suit of armour. Disrupt the folding industry.

[Qwertious]

So, join a nudist colony to avoid doing laundry?

[koolba]

Robots? Assuming you already have 7+ days worth of clothes simply hire a maid to come by once a week.

With a human you never have to worry about software upgrades, charging batteries, or wake up in a cold sweat in fear of your hired help violating Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics.

[greedo]

Humans are quite capable of violating the laws of robotics too!

[pksadiq]

> Humans are quite capable of violating the laws of robotics too!

Well, that could mean that robots may too violate the laws of robotics!

[robotresearcher]

The question was “why can’t you automate it?”.

[koolba]

Automate doesn’t have to mean a machine is handling it. It means you don’t have to handle it. Human automation is a valid tool, in particular for things like housework.

[sjg007]

Absolutely. Money saves time and stress. You can pay people to do other things for you. You can afford to take a vacation. You can also probably afford a temporary job loss (unless you are mortgaged to the hilt). You can afford to start a startup in some cases. Still I am pretty sure you can find people who make $250k that are miserable, possibly because of the working conditions.

[cpncrunch]

On the other hand, you might have a stressful job to actually generate that $200k, and you might have to live somewhere like SF with very high cost of living, and your commute might be stressful, etc.