Are rich people happier?
When wealth is measured within countries, wealthier people seem to be slightly happier on average. But the effects of money on happiness in general are not large. Dire poverty is more likely to make a person unhappy than wealth is to make a person happy, although even for poverty the effects are not overwhelming. The effects of living in a wealthy nation are stronger – people in wealthy nations show higher levels of SWB, and this is true for all levels of wealth within nations. One thing that appears clearly to be bad – wanting money too much. Those who highly value materialism have been found in a number of studies to have lower SWB.
