[bluGill]

The amount of money to get over that hump is small. Many people in poverty are happy. If you are at the very bottom with not enough to eat and such money can buy happiness, but you can be below the poverty line and still be about as happy as everyone.

[SoftTalker]

This is a lie that people with money tell themselves to make themselves feel better about not giving away more of their money (ironically, proving themselves correct).

There's certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I'd even agree that it is a cliff. Once you have a decent place to live, and your day-to-day worries about paying the bills are covered, and unexpected emergencies do not threaten your ability to get to work, keep your job, and pay your rent, then for most people more money has a diminishing impact on happiness. But that amount of money is quite a bit more than the poverty line.

[ff317]

Quite a bit indeed. Forbes ran an article a few months ago claiming that a family of four with two incomes needs to be earning a combined $400K to be able to reasonably afford the paid child care needed for both parents to be working.

[bryanlarsen]

That hump is slightly above the average income level, so I wouldn't call it small. And it doesn't flatten at the hump -- people with more money are still generally happier, but the correlation does drop a lot.

[Arrowmaster]

No it's not. It might vary by country and culture but in the west that amount has consistently been found to be well over the poverty line and more often over double the median household income.