LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - As you head out to work, THV's Craig O'Neill has a question for you. How much money is it going to take to make you happy. At what point will you be content?
A group of researchers at Princeton University asked that very same question. They surveyed over 400 thousand Americans nationwide across different regions and ages.
So at what point do people have enough money that contentment replaces anxiety? That physical ailments associated with financial stress are reduced; that there are better daily moods?
And not only that but once you reach this yearly income level, there's no real increase in happiness once you start making more.
So what is it? What's the magic yearly salary in America? The happiness salary? Seventy-five thousand dollars! Yep, seventy-five thousand dollars a year. Before taxes.
Chances are good someone making that or more is going to disagree but what the research showed was that there was no appreciable gain in satisfaction after $75,000 a year even among the uber rich.
We hear talk of the first million. Apparently that doesn't make us as happy as the first seventy-five thousand.