Comment by s1artibartfast
2 years ago
I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent.
I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people assume every variable reduces to income.
What about Alex when they have low income, but a healthy home life? What about Alex when they have higher income, but a shit home life?
Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe.
It is very likely that yes, he would in fact be happier with an extra 20k a year.
You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. He might put the extra 20k a year into savings for his kid's education - I know that feeling like I'm setting my kids up for future success makes me happy.
Money buys happiness, up to a point. It's like a pretty linear increase in happiness to some spot somewhere above median income (I forget, something like 1.5x median income). After that, it has very little impact on happiness, if at all.
Supposedly, based on some studies.
Another way to view it is to say poverty buys misery
> Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe.
Individual happiness and being a good parent (which contributes to breaking the cycle) don't necessarily intersect as much as you think, or at least it's based on the individual.
Some people's happiness is only marginally related to how well their kids are doing (as evident by rise in single-parent households), so the 20k may contribute essentially 0 to the long term solution.
> You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting.
If I don't know, then you don't know either. You're taking the other good extreme and presenting is at fact. The reality is somewhere in the middle.
It's like you didn't read anything I wrote, and then built your own straw man to argue with.
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Money can buy happiness, but it isn't a guarantee, and isn't necessarily the most important factor.
Kill Alex's parents, and rape them as a child, addict them to meth, and 20k wont fix that.
This article and data is in desperate need of a Analysis of variance for the different factors.
I'm not sure who you know that makes $40k and has a foot on a "hedonistic treadmill"
Most everyone I know, of all incomes, are on some form of hedonistic treadmill.
Sometimes it is one beer and cigarette to the next, sometimes it's one sailboat and handbag to the next.
There are plenty of pre-industrialized peoples that smoked tobacco, drank alcohol, and did drugs recreationally. Were they too on hedonistic treadmills?
It's funny how Americans love to brag about how they have the freedom to do whatever and pay less tax, but then turn around and treat their poor like fools if they live in any way that doesn't resemble soviet-era russia.
This is the same thing boomers do when they tell millennials to stop eating avocado toast to pay their school loans.
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You can certainly go into debt to get your foot onto that treadmill. You can live with your parents and spend the entire $40k on entertainment. The exact figure of the income barely matters. FOMO and consumerist culture almost ensures that everyone is participating.
The companies are certainly happy to take your money, regardless of how hard it will be to pay back.