Quick, call Bill Gates and tell him the news: Money buys happiness.

    According to the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS), which asked a wide array of questions in 2,904 personal interviews conducted in respondents’ homes, happiness increases as income increases. When asked if they were very happy or less than very happy, only one out of four respondents (26 percent) whose income is less than $25,000 responded that they were very happy. In comparison, one out of three respondents (34 percent) making over $25,000 reported that they were very happy. While the 8 percent difference among the two income groups is far from astounding, it does suggest a positive correlation between money and happiness.

    Dawn Kostoroski, a 54-year-old secretary from Pelham, Mass., disagreed with the survey’s findings.

    “It has never been my goal to make a lot of money. Materialistic people may think that money can buy happiness, but I don’t,” Kostoroski said.

    Brian McGrath, a 24-year-old computer programmer from Chapel Hill, also disagreed that money buys happiness. McGrath believed that more important things such as enjoying work, getting along with relatives and having close friends fosters happiness.

    “Overall, it’s the little things in life that make me happy. If you’re incredibly lonely or have no friends [money] doesn’t matter,” said McGrath.

    When the GSS stratified the respondent’s income further, it again illustrated money’s influence on happiness. Respondents were classified into one of four income groups: 1)  less than $17,500, 2) between $17,500 and $34,999, 3) between $35,000 and $59,999 and 4) more than $60,000. To limit confusion, the people in these four income categories will be referred to, from poorest to richest, as: lower class, working class, middle class and upper class.

    A significant difference in happiness existed between the upper class and the lower class. Two out of five respondents (40 percent) in the upper class reported being very happy. Contrarily, only one out of four respondents (24 percent) in the lower class reported being very happy.

    While the GSS showed that difference between rich and poor was substantial, the survey also showed that the difference between adjacent income groups was not as significant. Those in the working class were only slightly happier than those in the lower class. Only 26 percent of the people in the working class reported being very happy—a 2 percent increase from the reported happiness in the lower class.

    Similarly, middle-class happiness climbed slightly from working class happiness. Three out of ten (31 percent) middle-class Americans reported being very happy—a 6 percent jump from the working class.

    The biggest increase in happiness between adjacent income groups occurred between the middle class and the upper class, with the upper class 9 percent more likely to be very happy than the middle class. Therefore, according to the survey, the rich are not only significantly happier than the poor, but happiness increases slightly in each subsequent income category.
 

    So that’s it. The GSS has unlocked the secret to happiness. It looks like time for all of us to get a second job, right? Not exactly.

    Several recent studies, conducted separately from the GSS, have contradicted the survey’s results, finding that rich people are not any happier than the rest of us and that about one-third are less happy than the average American. Finally, a scientific explanation for Ebeneezer Scrooge’s discontent.

    Ed Diener found in his study, “Happiness of the Very Wealthy,” that after a certain moderate income level, extra money doesn’t increase happiness. In the study, conducted a decade ago, approximately 50 people from the Forbes Four Hundred list of wealthiest Americans answered detailed questions about their lifestyle. Diener, then, contrasted the answers of the super-rich with the answers of randomly selected individuals living in the same parts of the country.

    One question in the survey asked: “How do you feel about how happy you are?” Diener awarded seven points to those who answered “delighted,” one point to those who answered “terrible” and other corresponding point totals for intermediate answers. Diener found that the richest people in America are only minimally happier than the rest of us. The average for the super-rich (5.82) was only slightly higher than the average for the control group (5.34). Additionally, Diener found that more than one out of three average Americans are happier than the super-rich.

    According to Diener’s study, the desperately poor are the only people whose happiness is truly affected by money. This makes sense. In cases of extreme poverty, money can mean the difference between starving and eating, freezing and staying warm. To those living beneath the poverty line, more money means survival. To the filthy rich, more money may mean another summer home in the Hamptons.

    “[If someone’s] having trouble just surviving a little money can definitely help out in the happiness department,” said McGrath.
 Another finding that repudiated the claim that money buys happiness was a 1997 article by Dan Seligman in Medical Economics. Seligman stated that only “1 to 2 percent of people’s differences in happiness is attributable to their differences in income.” Seligman likened a raise to a martini. It raises spirits, but only temporarily.

    Billionaire Warren Buffet, the second richest person in the world, summed up money’s effect on people by saying: “If you were a jerk before, you’ll be a bigger jerk with a billion dollars.”
 

    One of the most striking differences revealed in the GSS—a survey sponsored by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago—was the differences in opinion between men and women. In short, money made men significantly happier, but had no effect on women’s happiness. While two out of every five males (38 percent) in the higher income category reported that they were very happy, only one out of four males (24 percent) in the lower income category reported that they were very happy. Contrarily, there was no statistical significant difference in the reported happiness among lower paid women (27.3 percent) and higher paid women (27.7 percent).

    While recent studies have not suggested why such a gender difference exists in the correlation between money and happiness, McGrath and Kostoroski offered their rationale. McGrath said that different social expectations may account for the gender differences.

    “A man is brought up in the mindframe that he’s a provider and if he doesn’t [provide] he may think he’s unsuccessful,” McGrath said. “But, for a woman a good relationship or a happy family is more important than money.”

    Kostoroski made no mention of society’s expectations in money not buying her happiness, but did agree with McGrath that good personal relationships make her happy.

    “Just being with people I like makes me happy,” said Kostoroski. “Being near my family and having a close relationship with them that’s what is important.”
 

    So if money doesn’t account for most people’s happiness, where does it come from? In short, happiness comes from your parents.

    “You either inherit happy genes or you don’t,” said Seligman.

    According to a University of Minnesota twin study project, happiness largely relies upon the blend of genes inherited in the great genetic lottery. The study concluded that while 80% of happiness comes from differences in genetic make-up, only 2 percent comes from differences in income.

    William J. O’Malley argued in his article “Happiness, History, Morality” that fame, sex, power and money are too often mistaken for vehicles of happiness. O’Malley claimed that constructing happiness is far more complex and mercurial than the attainment of wealth, power and fame.

    “How [do you] explain Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, John Belushi, William Holden, Howard Hughes, Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix and a host of others who had it all?,” asked O’Malley. “Did they sedate themselves and finally kill themselves because they’d found fulfillment? Because they were so happy?”

    Comparing the GSS data, which had a sampling error of (+/-) 3 percent,  to previous findings it seems the answer to whether money buys happiness is more cryptic than ever. However, the studies may have resolved one issue—that correlation does not exist in the opposite direction.

    Or, more precisely as Warren Buffet once quipped, “happiness does not buy money.”