(Bloomberg) — When it comes to money buying happiness, more is better. This is according to new research from a senior colleague at the Wharton School, who has argued that the correlation between wealth and well-being does not increase when income reach a certain point.

Matthew Killingsworth, who studies the causes of human happinesssaid both millionaires and billionaires are significantly happier than people earning more than $500,000 a year in an update to a study published last year that argued against the notion of a so-called “happiness plateau.”

“The results suggest that the positive relationship between money and well-being continues well up the economic ladder,” Killingsworth said.

Last year, Killingsworth was part of a team of scientists including the late psychologist Daniel Kahneman who published a study challenging a famous newspaper of 2010 by Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton who said that happiness tends to increase with income up to about $60,000 to $90,000 a year, at which point it levels off.

Kahneman and Killingworth reanalyzed that work and found the correlation between money and happiness extended to people with wages up to at least $500,000 a year.

The highest pleasure

The new research, which is being self-published by Killingsworth, found that people with a net worth in the millions or billions reported an average life satisfaction rating of between 5.5 and 6 out of 7, compared to a rating of about 4.6 for those earning about 100,000 dollars. a year and just over 4 for those earning around $15,000 to $30,000 a year.

That makes the difference in happiness between the wealthiest and middle-income groups almost three times larger than the difference between the middle- and lower-income groups, Killingsworth said.

Read more: Wealthy Americans feel like they don't have enough

“The size of the gap between the low and the high income level is enormous,” he said. “Within the limits of what money can explain, a large amount of that difference occurs above average income.”

The findings were made by combining data used in Killingsworth's previous research with that from a 2018 study of 4,000 people with an average wealth of $3 million to $8 million from 17 countries, and a 1985 study of the list of Forbes Richest Americans. Previous studies asked “virtually identical” questions to Killingsworth, with individuals being asked to rate the degree to which they are “satisfied” with life.

To contact the author of this story:
Conrad Quilty-Harper in London at (email protected)