

The Perfect Salary for Happiness: $75,000 - jedwhite
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-for-happiness-75000-a-year/

======
russell_h
This article confuses me on two points:

1\. I need some sort of reference point as to where the happy people earning
$75,000 are living. This hardly needs to be said on HN, but $75,000 in West
Virginia is a lot different than $75,000 in the Bay Area or NYC (for that
matter, it says nothing of taxes either).

2\. The article claims that people's "satisfaction" continues to increase the
more they earn (beyond $75,000), but doesn't say why that doesn't increase
their happiness. Is the increase in "satisfaction" being offset by something
else, or is "satisfaction" (as they define it) simply orthogonal to happiness?

~~~
jsackmann
Your first point is raised in some form nearly every time this comes up. But
what is forgotten is the value of living in these more expensive places. $75k
in NYC/SF may buy you less, but you get more free things of value, in the form
of quality peers, access to eduction/investment, etc.

It's only an anecdote, but: My income would be the same regardless of where I
live, and I'm pretty sure my choice to live in NYC provides me more happiness
than most other possible choices.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I was actually at my happiest when I made about $75K in the bay area. I lived
in a house in SF with all my friends and I was a lower level startup grunt and
didn't care too much about my job. I just figured that I could always get
another stupid $75K programming job. So I did my best at work but also spent a
lot of time goofing off, hanging out with my bros, going snowboarding on
weekends, riding my bike around, etc.

When I started making about twice that I realized I was in a unique position
and better buckle down and be more serious about my job, which was far less
fun and often quite stressful.

Once you get beyond that it's still not as fun but at least one is banking a
lot of money so when the gravy train ends you can just retire to somewhere
cheap for a few years.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Same topic, many articles:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668979>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668909>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668478>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1667603>

Business Week, LA Times, New Scientist, Inc.com, and now Wall Street Journal.

Take your pick.

------
lefstathiou
This is such a joke. I hear about crap like this all the time from my gf who
is studying at Hunter College in NYC to become a teacher. The ease with which
some people can marginalize the ambitions of others amazes me.

Here is a quote from a poster in one of her class rooms: "behind every great
fortune is a crime".

~~~
kurtosis
I don't understand what you are saying. Who is marginalizing the ambitions of
others? Why is it easy? I take it you think that the study is invalid because
you called it "crap" and a "joke". I'm honestly not sure - why is it a joke or
crap?

Did the poster in the classroom provide any of the many examples of fortunes
that began with crime? To say that "every" great fortune began with a crime is
false, but certainly many did.

------
unshift
Is it just me or does this sound like a bunch of garbage that only helps
justify effective salary targets and caps "for the good of the worker"?

It's like a lot of articles that say "you should pay your coders well, but
most of them don't care about salary beyond a certain point, they'd rather
work on interesting problems." What?! Sounds like bullshit justification to
me. Sure it's nice to work on interesting problems, but isn't it nicer to work
on interesting problems AND get paid well?

------
unavailable
> The Perfect Salary for Happiness

This is a very strange statement. What about the taxes? What about the
difference in the value of $75K between say Chicago and Ulan-Bator?

------
jraines
I swear I read a round of articles on this subject a few months ago and the
number was $60K.

[http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie...](http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=happiness+60#hl=en&q=happiness+60k&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=368644f9c0f1c536)

~~~
Evgeny
The rate of inflation these days is astounding ...

------
koeselitz
People have pointed out some of the unspoken underlying assumptions here.

Another one is an assumption which seems to be remarkably common: the
assumption that everyone _knows_ when they're happy and when they're not.

------
Towle_
This just in: Happiness became measurable.

------
keefe
per month maybe

------
scrame
No.

