this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Work Reform

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Relevant study: https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf

tl;dr: Happiness increases logarithmically with income, leveling off at about $75,000/year (at least in 2010).

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's about $105k in today's dollars.

You know, typical middle class income. /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Lol in some places that’s considered low income.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

NO IT'S NOT, THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT PHENOMINA.

Diminishing returns: My first dollar buys a loaf of bread necessary for my survival, my millionth buys me 0.01% of a sports car.

Hedonic treadmill: Neither my sports car nor loaves of bread seem as wonderous to me after they've become a part of my routine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not to be contrary, but the last line of the summary in the wiki article is:

The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness

I would infer from that, that increased wealth has increasingly diminishing returns after a certain point.

I did try to follow the link, but Investopedia broke it on their end and I can't seem to find it (aside: wooof, that is a bad layout). Any good sources for me?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Oh. Just over the median income in America. So literally half the population of the most powerful country in the world is insulated from the problem.

EDIT: okay, looks like I was looking at median household income and not median personal income. Meaning my math is off.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I mean, cost of living is higher than america than other parts of the world and other parts of the world have state-funded security programs that take some of the anxiety away from living.

Here in (western) europe I'd wager at half of people (including me) are insulated from "poverty induced misery". There are an awful lot of stupidly big and expensive cars on the road.

Am I glad that ~400 million (200 mill in north america, 100 mill in europe, 100 mill everywhere else) people now live in that state of relative freedom? absolutely, but it is depressing to think about what a minority of humanity it really is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah... It's a tiny sliver of the species.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like the mean is rather skewed in the US. It's almost certainly less than half that are insulated.