money and happiness essay

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Does More Money Really Make Us More Happy?

  • Elizabeth Dunn
  • Chris Courtney

money and happiness essay

A big paycheck won’t necessarily bring you joy

Although some studies show that wealthier people tend to be happier, prioritizing money over time can actually have the opposite effect.

  • But even having just a little bit of extra cash in your savings account ($500), can increase your life satisfaction. So how can you keep more cash on hand?
  • Ask yourself: What do I buy that isn’t essential for my survival? Is the expense genuinely contributing to my happiness? If the answer to the second question is no, try taking a break from those expenses.
  • Other research shows there are specific ways to spend your money to promote happiness, such as spending on experiences, buying time, and investing in others.
  • Spending choices that promote happiness are also dependent on individual personalities, and future research may provide more individualized advice to help you get the most happiness from your money.

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How often have you willingly sacrificed your free time to make more money? You’re not alone. But new research suggests that prioritizing money over time may actually undermine our happiness.

  • ED Elizabeth Dunn is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and Chief Science Officer of Happy Money, a financial technology company with a mission to help borrowers become savers. She is also co-author of “ Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending ” with Dr. Michael Norton. Her TED2019 talk on money and happiness was selected as one of the top 10 talks of the year by TED.
  • CC Chris Courtney is the VP of Science at Happy Money. He utilizes his background in cognitive neuroscience, human-computer interaction, and machine learning to drive personalization and engagement in products designed to empower people to take control of their financial lives. His team is focused on creating innovative ways to provide more inclusionary financial services, while building tools to promote financial and psychological well-being and success.

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Jade Wu Ph.D.

Can Money Really Buy Happiness?

Money and happiness are related—but not in the way you think..

Updated November 10, 2023 | Reviewed by Chloe Williams

  • More money is linked to increased happiness, some research shows.
  • People who won the lottery have greater life satisfaction, even years later.
  • Wealth is not associated with happiness globally; non-material things are more likely to predict wellbeing.
  • Money, in and of itself, cannot buy happiness, but it can provide a means to the things we value in life.

Money is a big part of our lives, our identities, and perhaps our well-being. Sometimes, it can feel like your happiness hinges on how much cash is in your bank account. Have you ever thought to yourself, “If only I could increase my salary by 12 percent, I’d feel better”? How about, “I wish I had an inheritance. How easier life would be!” I don’t blame you — I’ve had the same thoughts many times.

But what does psychological research say about the age-old question: Can money really buy happiness? Let’s take a brutally honest exploration of how money and happiness are (and aren’t) related. (Spoiler alert: I’ve got bad news, good news, and lots of caveats.)

Higher earners are generally happier

Over 10 years ago, a study based on Gallup Poll data on 1,000 people made a big headline in the news. It found that people with higher incomes report being happier... but only up to an annual income of $75,000 (equivalent to about $90,000 today). After this point, a high emotional well-being wasn’t directly correlated to more money. This seemed to show that once a persons’ basic (and some “advanced”) needs are comfortably met, more money isn’t necessary for well-being.

Shift Drive / Shutterstock

But a new 2021 study of over one million participants found that there’s no such thing as an inflection point where more money doesn’t equal more happiness, at least not up to an annual salary of $500,000. In this study, participants’ well-being was measured in more detail. Instead of being asked to remember how well they felt in the past week, month, or year, they were asked how they felt right now in the moment. And based on this real-time assessment, very high earners were feeling great.

Similarly, a Swedish study on lottery winners found that even after years, people who won the lottery had greater life satisfaction, mental health, and were more prepared to face misfortune like divorce , illness, and being alone than regular folks who didn’t win the lottery. It’s almost as if having a pile of money made those things less difficult to cope with for the winners.

Evaluative vs. experienced well-being

At this point, it's important to suss out what researchers actually mean by "happiness." There are two major types of well-being psychologists measure: evaluative and experienced. Evaluative well-being refers to your answer to, “How do you think your life is going?” It’s what you think about your life. Experienced well-being, however, is your answer to, “What emotions are you feeling from day to day, and in what proportions?” It is your actual experience of positive and negative emotions.

In both of these studies — the one that found the happiness curve to flatten after $75,000 and the one that didn't — the researchers were focusing on experienced well-being. That means there's a disagreement in the research about whether day-to-day experiences of positive emotions really increase with higher and higher incomes, without limit. Which study is more accurate? Well, the 2021 study surveyed many more people, so it has the advantage of being more representative. However, there is a big caveat...

Material wealth is not associated with happiness everywhere in the world

If you’re not a very high earner, you may be feeling a bit irritated right now. How unfair that the rest of us can’t even comfort ourselves with the idea that millionaires must be sad in their giant mansions!

But not so fast.

Yes, in the large million-person study, experienced well-being (aka, happiness) did continually increase with higher income. But this study only included people in the United States. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that our culture is quite materialistic, more so than other countries, and income level plays a huge role in our lifestyle.

Another study of Mayan people in a poor, rural region of Yucatan, Mexico, did not find the level of wealth to be related to happiness, which the participants had high levels of overall. Separately, a Gallup World Poll study of people from many countries and cultures also found that, although higher income was associated with higher life evaluation, it was non-material things that predicted experienced well-being (e.g., learning, autonomy, respect, social support).

Earned wealth generates more happiness than inherited wealth

More good news: For those of us with really big dreams of “making it” and striking it rich through talent and hard work, know that the actual process of reaching your dream will not only bring you cash but also happiness. A study of ultra-rich millionaires (net worth of at least $8,000,000) found that those who earned their wealth through work and effort got more of a happiness boost from their money than those who inherited it. So keep dreaming big and reaching for your entrepreneurial goals … as long as you’re not sacrificing your actual well-being in the pursuit.

money and happiness essay

There are different types of happiness, and wealth is better for some than others

We’ve been talking about “happiness” as if it’s one big thing. But happiness actually has many different components and flavors. Think about all the positive emotions you’ve felt — can we break them down into more specifics? How about:

  • Contentment
  • Gratefulness

...and that's just a short list.

It turns out that wealth may be associated with some of these categories of “happiness,” specifically self-focused positive emotions such as pride and contentment, whereas less wealthy people have more other-focused positive emotions like love and compassion.

In fact, in the Swedish lottery winners study, people’s feelings about their social well-being (with friends, family, neighbors, and society) were no different between lottery winners and regular people.

Money is a means to the things we value, not happiness itself

One major difference between lottery winners and non-winners, it turns out, is that lottery winners have more spare time. This is the thing that really makes me envious , and I would hypothesize that this is the main reason why lottery winners are more satisfied with their life.

Consider this simply: If we had the financial security to spend time on things we enjoy and value, instead of feeling pressured to generate income all the time, why wouldn’t we be happier?

This is good news. It’s a reminder that money, in and of itself, cannot literally buy happiness. It can buy time and peace of mind. It can buy security and aesthetic experiences, and the ability to be generous to your family and friends. It makes room for other things that are important in life.

In fact, the researchers in that lottery winner study used statistical approaches to benchmark how much happiness winning $100,000 brings in the short-term (less than one year) and long-term (more than five years) compared to other major life events. For better or worse, getting married and having a baby each give a bigger short-term happiness boost than winning money, but in the long run, all three of these events have the same impact.

What does this mean? We make of our wealth and our life what we will. This is especially true for the vast majority of the world made up of people struggling to meet basic needs and to rise out of insecurity. We’ve learned that being rich can boost your life satisfaction and make it easier to have positive emotions, so it’s certainly worth your effort to set goals, work hard, and move towards financial health.

But getting rich is not the only way to be happy. You can still earn health, compassion, community, love, pride, connectedness, and so much more, even if you don’t have a lot of zeros in your bank account. After all, the original definition of “wealth” referred to a person’s holistic wellness in life, which means we all have the potential to be wealthy... in body, mind, and soul.

Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A.. High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. . Proceedings of the national academy of sciences. 2010.

Killingsworth, M. A. . Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year .. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021.

Lindqvist, E., Östling, R., & Cesarini, D. . Long-run effects of lottery wealth on psychological well-being. . The Review of Economic Studies. 2020.

Guardiola, J., González‐Gómez, F., García‐Rubio, M. A., & Lendechy‐Grajales, Á.. Does higher income equal higher levels of happiness in every society? The case of the Mayan people. . International Journal of Social Welfare. 2013.

Diener, E., Ng, W., Harter, J., & Arora, R. . Wealth and happiness across the world: material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. . Journal of personality and social psychology. 2010.

Donnelly, G. E., Zheng, T., Haisley, E., & Norton, M. I.. The amount and source of millionaires’ wealth (moderately) predict their happiness . . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2018.

Piff, P. K., & Moskowitz, J. P. . Wealth, poverty, and happiness: Social class is differentially associated with positive emotions.. Emotion. 2018.

Jade Wu Ph.D.

Jade Wu, Ph.D., is a clinical health psychologist and host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast. She specializes in helping those with sleep problems and anxiety disorders.

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How does valuing money affect your happiness, two new studies find that tying your self-worth to financial success hampers happiness and well-being—even for the well-off..

It may seem that money is a sure path to prestige and happiness. After all, many of our most well-paid citizens are held up as role models of success, leading seemingly perfect, enviable lives. Still, some people embrace the opposite idea: Money can’t buy you happiness. So, which of these is right?

In recent studies, scientists have found that the connection between wealth and well-being is not clear-cut. While some studies seem to tie wealth to well-being, others show that, after a certain point, a higher income will not bring more happiness or life satisfaction.

Now two new studies shed further light on the relationship between wealth and happiness. Their findings suggest that money doesn’t fulfill basic psychological needs, like belonging and competence. That’s why making more of it will not increase your happiness, even if you value money above other things. In fact, it may do the opposite.

What money can and can’t do for you

money and happiness essay

In one study , University of Buffalo researcher Lora Park and her colleagues investigated what happens when people tie their self-worth to financial success, scoring high on the “Financial Contingency of Self-Worth” scale, or FCWS. The researchers found that doing so made people engage in more social comparisons, experience more stress and anxiety, and feel less autonomy than those who didn’t tie their self-worth to income, regardless of their actual economic status.

“People in this society are often focused on pursuing money, and they don’t think there is anything bad about that,” says Park. “But in terms of your psychological well-being, there are all kinds of negative consequences.”

It also might affect your problem-solving ability. Park and her colleagues randomly assigned participants to write about their dissatisfaction with either an aspect of their financial situation—like not having enough money to pay rent—or their academic performance, like getting a bad test grade. Afterwards, they reported on what coping strategies they would use in response to the situation.

Research assistants analyzed the essays and found that participants who scored high in FCSW used more emotionally negative words and reported more disengagement strategies—like giving up or avoiding solutions—when writing about a financial stressor versus an academic stressor than people scoring low in FCSW. None of the results were affected by the actual income of the students.

People who are facing a problem should, logically, be focused on figuring out ways to solve it, says Park. “But what we found is that high financial contingency of self-worth somehow blocks that response.”

Why would this be?

Park believes that when people feel their self-concept is threatened in some way, they will become more self-protective so as not to experience low self-esteem. So, if your self-esteem is tied to money, a financial stressor will cause a lot more stress than it would for someone who doesn’t feel that way. Some support for her argument comes from another part of her experiment, where having participants high in FCSW remind themselves of their character strengths—like their intelligence or sense of humor—seemed to negate these avoidance effects.

Affirming Important Values

Affirming Important Values

When your self-image takes a hit, reflect on what matters

“When people take a step back and have a broader perspective on their sense of self, that’s often enough to take them out of the self-esteem rumination/narrow focus they otherwise have,” says Park.

As prior research suggests, it can also be the case that people simply want money to do something that it cannot. “Self-esteem, like happiness, is a byproduct of meeting psychological needs—like meaning or purpose, feeling competent, having close relationships, or having a sense of autonomy—and basing your self-worth on financial success actually detracts from fulfilling those needs,” says Park.

Why community beats money

Park’s findings mirror other recent findings from the University of San Francisco’s Matthew Monnot, who studied financial success and well-being in China.

In his study , Monnot notes that, as China’s economy has grown, its citizens seem to be facing some of the same issues that Americans have faced. A growing number of people equate individual success with making more money and valuing money—an extrinsic reward—over other, more intrinsic rewards, like relationships or community. To see how this trend has affected well-being, he conducted a series of studies involving thousands of participants from several cities in China.

In one experiment, Monnot showed that job satisfaction did not rise in tandem with income. In fact, as with prior studies, wealth beyond a certain point tended to make Chinese workers no more satisfied with their jobs or their incomes, suggesting that money has only so much power to increase our life satisfaction.

“Our findings are pretty aligned with prior research,” says Monnot. “The correlation between income and job satisfaction is really small, to the extent that it predicts about five percent of job satisfaction.”

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To tease out why, Monnot looked at how individual values shape the relationship between money and income satisfaction. He asked participants to pick the five factors they thought were most important for well-being from a list of 25 possible choices—including income—and then measured how satisfied they were with their income as it rose. Though one might expect people valuing income to be happier as they made more money, Monnot found the opposite: People who picked income as an important value were significantly less satisfied, even at higher levels.

“If income is important to you, then income is actually less satisfying as income goes up than if income is not important to you,” he says.

Though this seems paradoxical, Monnot says it makes some sense, when you understand how intrinsic versus extrinsic values affect our happiness.

“Not all goals are equal in terms of producing well-being, productivity, job satisfaction, or life satisfaction,” says Monnot. “If you say income is something really important to you, because income is an extrinsic reward and not part of your intrinsic needs, if you focus on it, it won’t make you happy.”

In other words, look inside of yourself, not your wallet, for happiness.

Monnot was curious to see how living in different cities in China might affect the relationship between valuing income and well-being. After all, if the government is developing policies to increase income in certain areas of the country, it would be good to know the impact this is having on happiness.

Again, he had people pick out five things they valued; but this time he separated people into different groups depending on whether they placed high value on materialistic things, like income and status, and placed low value on relationships and community, or vice versa. When he compared these two groups, people who valued relationships or community versus materialistic things had greater job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. This was true regardless of their city’s per-capita income.

“The big idea is that higher GDP or people having more money is all great—especially at a societal level. You want your economy to be more productive and to have more resources and money available,” says Monnot. “Well, maybe that’s not necessarily in and of itself something that’s going to produce a happier population.”

Both Monnot and Park hope that their research might lead people to think a bit differently about the supposed benefits of striving for more money. Though neither would deny that we need money to survive, valuing it too highly or tying it to your self-worth is clearly a mistake.

Monnot hopes his research might help individuals—and business leaders and policymakers—to realize that fulfilling psychological needs is more important to happiness than making a lot of money.


“Autonomy, developing a skill set to be good at what you do, being affiliative with others, having a sense of connection to your community—these are all things that we as researchers are fairly convinced are innate, evolved human tendencies that bring happiness,” he says.

“If you can get people to focus on fulfilling those needs, they’ll become happier. The research is strongly in favor of that.”

About the Author

{author}

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

When we wonder whether money can buy happiness, we may consider the luxuries it provides, like expensive dinners and lavish vacations. But cash is key in another important way: It helps people avoid many of the day-to-day hassles that cause stress, new research shows.

Money can provide calm and control, allowing us to buy our way out of unforeseen bumps in the road, whether it’s a small nuisance, like dodging a rainstorm by ordering up an Uber, or a bigger worry, like handling an unexpected hospital bill, says Harvard Business School professor Jon Jachimowicz.

“If we only focus on the happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something,” says Jachimowicz, an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at HBS. “We also need to think about all of the worries that it can free us from.”

The idea that money can reduce stress in everyday life and make people happier impacts not only the poor, but also more affluent Americans living at the edge of their means in a bumpy economy. Indeed, in 2019, one in every four Americans faced financial scarcity, according to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The findings are particularly important now, as inflation eats into the ability of many Americans to afford basic necessities like food and gas, and COVID-19 continues to disrupt the job market.

Buying less stress

The inspiration for researching how money alleviates hardships came from advice that Jachimowicz’s father gave him. After years of living as a struggling graduate student, Jachimowicz received his appointment at HBS and the financial stability that came with it.

“My father said to me, ‘You are going to have to learn how to spend money to fix problems.’” The idea stuck with Jachimowicz, causing him to think differently about even the everyday misfortunes that we all face.

To test the relationship between cash and life satisfaction, Jachimowicz and his colleagues from the University of Southern California, Groningen University, and Columbia Business School conducted a series of experiments, which are outlined in a forthcoming paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science , The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life .

Higher income amounts to lower stress

In one study, 522 participants kept a diary for 30 days, tracking daily events and their emotional responses to them. Participants’ incomes in the previous year ranged from less than $10,000 to $150,000 or more. They found:

  • Money reduces intense stress: There was no significant difference in how often the participants experienced distressing events—no matter their income, they recorded a similar number of daily frustrations. But those with higher incomes experienced less negative intensity from those events.
  • More money brings greater control : Those with higher incomes felt they had more control over negative events and that control reduced their stress. People with ample incomes felt more agency to deal with whatever hassles may arise.
  • Higher incomes lead to higher life satisfaction: People with higher incomes were generally more satisfied with their lives.

“It’s not that rich people don’t have problems,” Jachimowicz says, “but having money allows you to fix problems and resolve them more quickly.”

Why cash matters

In another study, researchers presented about 400 participants with daily dilemmas, like finding time to cook meals, getting around in an area with poor public transportation, or working from home among children in tight spaces. They then asked how participants would solve the problem, either using cash to resolve it, or asking friends and family for assistance. The results showed:

  • People lean on family and friends regardless of income: Jachimowicz and his colleagues found that there was no difference in how often people suggested turning to friends and family for help—for example, by asking a friend for a ride or asking a family member to help with childcare or dinner.
  • Cash is the answer for people with money: The higher a person’s income, however, the more likely they were to suggest money as a solution to a hassle, for example, by calling an Uber or ordering takeout.

While such results might be expected, Jachimowicz says, people may not consider the extent to which the daily hassles we all face create more stress for cash-strapped individuals—or the way a lack of cash may tax social relationships if people are always asking family and friends for help, rather than using their own money to solve a problem.

“The question is, when problems come your way, to what extent do you feel like you can deal with them, that you can walk through life and know everything is going to be OK,” Jachimowicz says.

Breaking the ‘shame spiral’

In another recent paper , Jachimowicz and colleagues found that people experiencing financial difficulties experience shame, which leads them to avoid dealing with their problems and often makes them worse. Such “shame spirals” stem from a perception that people are to blame for their own lack of money, rather than external environmental and societal factors, the research team says.

“We have normalized this idea that when you are poor, it’s your fault and so you should be ashamed of it,” Jachimowicz says. “At the same time, we’ve structured society in a way that makes it really hard on people who are poor.”

For example, Jachimowicz says, public transportation is often inaccessible and expensive, which affects people who can’t afford cars, and tardy policies at work often penalize people on the lowest end of the pay scale. Changing those deeply-engrained structures—and the way many of us think about financial difficulties—is crucial.

After all, society as a whole may feel the ripple effects of the financial hardships some people face, since financial strain is linked with lower job performance, problems with long-term decision-making, and difficulty with meaningful relationships, the research says. Ultimately, Jachimowicz hopes his work can prompt thinking about systemic change.

“People who are poor should feel like they have some control over their lives, too. Why is that a luxury we only afford to rich people?” Jachimowicz says. “We have to structure organizations and institutions to empower everyone.”

[Image: iStockphoto/mihtiander]

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Essay on Money and Happiness

Introduction

Money is an aspect that determines one’s happiness in different circumstances, depending on what it does to one. The wellbeing of an individual is typically associated with his/her happiness. Money is a means of exchange and can be used to make individuals happy upon expenditure (Yıldız, 2016). For instance, one can use money to raise his/her standards of living to a level that satisfies them. Various communities in the world have different lifestyles that are adored by most members of the society. It is essential to examine the relationship between money and happiness among members of the society. Money makes life easy by providing basics that are important for happiness and satisfaction (Yıldız, 2016). For instance, one can use money to buy medicine, educate people, and even create a serene environment for relaxation. Such aspects make money have an attachment to happiness. However, it is not necessarily true that money brings joy in an individual as it leads to crime and insecurity.

Problem Statement

Happiness is essential even amongst employees of any company as it can ensure the retention of top skilled staff. In most situations, when people are accorded high pay and other monetary related rewards, they tend to do better in their operations. Equally, individuals living in abject poverty might lack the necessary resources to obtain basics that are meant for survival. As for the rich, one can buy anything that makes them happy at whatever price (D’Ambrosio, Jäntti & Lepinteur, 2019). The fact that money evokes a spirit of happiness in many individuals is true even though it makes some to cry in the end. The study explores the role of money in making people happy or sad in life. It is also important to note that some people re happy even though they do not have much money or richness with them.

Happiness implies a situation where one’s life is good and that the individuals are comfortable with the state of life. Materialistic aspects within the society support happiness, and money is one significant material factor. It is through money that families go on holiday to have fun with their loved ones (D’Ambrosio, Jäntti & Lepinteur, 2019). People within the society have different perceptions of money and what it does to make one happy. A background check on the topic of discussion will be necessary to establish facts that other researchers have presented in regards to money and happiness.

The study seeks to explore the role of money in boosting happiness within the society.

Supporting Evidence

Money makes life comfortable when spending fits one’s personality according to research conducted by Matz, Gladstone, and Stillwell. In the year 2016, the research echoed the role of money in providing the necessary support in life to make one happy. Money buys food for everyone, and lack of enough of it can make one go hungry (Matz, Gladstone & Stillwell, 2016). For instance, some individuals suffer from conditions that require the taking of specified meals. Such meals are expensive, making it hard for many people to manage without enough money. Most people who live in poverty cannot finance healthy meals three times a day. Eating a meal of choice is essential to each individual within the society, which is a source of happiness. Money has a close relationship with happiness as it provides meals of choice (Muresan, Ciumas & Achim, 2019). When one wants to take a specific meal, they can purchase the food by using money. Money is an essential element for nurturing a well-fed and happy society.

The second aspect that makes money important in creating happiness is the fact that it can deliver a serene environment. With money, an individual creates and modifies the environment to suit preferences and tastes. Hotels and resorts make money from creating cool environments for vacation and relaxing (Mogilner & Norton, 2016). Such environments are expensive and meant for the rich in society, creating a notion that money is the sole source of happiness. Spending the right way during vacation is a source of happiness for many, making money a significant factor for anyone on holiday. A serene environment allows one to relax and reflect on personal issues that are affecting one’s life. Equally, money enables one to construct a self-contained homestead with the features of preference put in place. Money is an essential aspect as it enables one to purchase construction materials for the building of a home (Mogilner & Norton, 2016). Individuals with enough of the resources end up constructing beautiful homes that spark a feeling of happiness among the residents.

Some diseases require money to heal as the medicine involved is expensive. Chronic diseases are expensive to handle, and the vulnerable in society might not be in a position to handle outbreaks due to the expensive procedures involved (Mogilner & Norton, 2016). For instance, cancer is an issue that has plagued many poor societies as the drugs for treatment are expensive for the poor. As such, with a limited amount of money, one might fail to access the necessary care meant to cure a specific condition. In the event, family members are denied happiness as such cases end up fatal (Bartolini, Mikucka & Sarracino, 2017). Money is a critical aspect that can help fight deadly diseases, especially when the therapy involved and drugs are expensive. When n individual lacks enough resources to go for medical care, there is a likelihood that they will pass on, which deprives family members of their happiness (Bartolini, Mikucka & Sarracino, 2017). It is important to examine the role of money in helping fight chronic diseases and other deadly outbreaks within the society.

Money has promoted education and civilization in various societies on a global front. It is through money that one can access quality education to transform the society. People from poor backgrounds are disadvantaged for the lack of enough resources to provide the required education. The rich have the opportunity to educate their children in international institutions that nurture talent and professionalism (Bartolini, Mikucka & Sarracino, 2017). The poor do not get the opportunity to quality education, a factor widening the rift between the rich and the poor. Through quality education, an individual gains satisfaction, which is a prerequisite for happiness among many.

Refuting Argument

Money is not the source of happiness in the world s some could argue. This is because money has made many lose their lives in the event of looking for money. The existence of the rich and the poor within the society is an indication that money is not everything. Crime cases have gone up due to the love of money. Happiness can arise from within, and one does not have to be rich to enjoy life (Muresan, Ciumas & Achim, 2019). The love for money has made many people commit crimes in the name of searching for money. As such, one can presume that money is the source of the high crime rates experienced in many countries. Criminals cannot stop at anything until they obtain money illegally from an individual. Happiness can be obtained through inner satisfaction on various matters(Muresan, Ciumas & Achim, 2019)It does not have to be money that is used to make one comfortable.

The love for money has escalated to another level to the extent of a society losing its morality. People are concerned with looking for money as a source of happiness, even though they end up being frustrated. There are many individuals across the world with purchasing power, however, the money does not deliver the desired happiness. The society has lost moral standards due to the increased evils associated with money (Muresan, Ciumas & Achim, 2019). People go as far as killing for money, a factor that depicts the society as eroded with ethical values. Money has led to the erosion of humanity, which has bred hatred and unwanted conflicts within the society. Money should not be seen as the source of happiness but can be used to make one comfortable.

To sum it up, money and happiness are two aspects that are interrelated as one provides more comfort. It is important to examine various ways that many can create happiness within an individual. Money enables individuals to buy food, accommodation, drugs, and fund educational activities within the society. In the event, one meets his/her needs using money, which is a significant factor in sparkling happiness. However, the love of money has been the source of all evil, including crime, corruption, and embezzlement of funds. Money sparks happiness but does not guarantee happiness for anyone within the society.

Bartolini, S., Mikucka, M., & Sarracino, F. (2017). Money, trust and happiness in transition countries: evidence from time series.  Social indicators research ,  130 (1), 87-106.

D’Ambrosio, C., Jäntti, M., & Lepinteur, A. (2019). Money and Happiness: Income, Wealth and Subjective Well-being.  Social Indicators Research , 1-20.

Matz, S. C., Gladstone, J. J., & Stillwell, D. (2016). Money buys happiness when spending fits our personality.  Psychological science ,  27 (5), 715-725.

Mogilner, C., & Norton, M. I. (2016). Time, money, and happiness.  Current Opinion in Psychology ,  10 , 12-16.

Muresan, G. M., Ciumas, C., & Achim, M. V. (2019). Can money buy happiness? Evidence for European Countries.  Applied Research in Quality of Life , 1-18.

Yıldız, H. (2016). The Relation between Money and Happiness in MENA Countries. In  Comparative Political and Economic Perspectives on the MENA Region  (pp. 111-124). IGI Global.

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