All 1 entries tagged OWW

Is £25k enough?

Yesterday’s T2 supplement contributed to the long running discussion about wealth and happiness. The general thrust is that “Once you’re earning £25 000 and upwards..money becomes increasingly irrelevant to genuine happiness”. Methodological issues relating to surveys of subjective well being suggest claims like that could be treated with caution; particularly when accompanied with suggestions for government policy. Still, it’s worth a read.

True happiness, said Bob Monkhouse, is when you marry a girl for love and later discover that she has money. We all appreciate the joke, of course, because though one side of us knows that a loving relationship provides a good chance of happiness the other thinks it would be guaranteed if that relationship made us rich as well.

Yet study after study shows that money fails to buy happiness. Incomes have increased threefold in Britain since 1950 but contentment levels have barely shifted. European research indicates that lottery winners revert to their previous levels of happiness within a year of their windfall. One look at the permanently sullen face of the multi- millionairess Victoria Beckham appears to prove the point.

Full article here.

Around the web, there has been some discussion of the role research on subjective well being should play in policy formation. See this post from Will Wilkinson on the Happiness and Public Policy blog and this from Chris at Stumbling & Mumbling. One World Week also featured a talk on the issue.

: 01 Feb 2006 12:51 |  Tags: Economics OWW Politics |  Comments (24) |  Close comments |  Report a problem