PBS Newshour-What Makes Us Happy?

MAKING SENSE -- June 20, 2013 at 4:00 PM EDT
By: Paul Solman

We've learned a lot about whether or not money can buy happiness. And in fact, I think it's much more accurate to say money does buy happiness in certain ways. It's not that money buys stuff and that stuff will make us happy. It's that money buys an entire ecology of happiness, especially for children. If we think about what's most important for children and their overall wellbeing in life, it's things like having a strong attachment to your parent; confidence and optimism about your future; strong social ties to other people; physical health.

In this country, it tends to be the upper income families that have health insurance and that's pretty important for kids. Also, if you come from a more affluent family, you're more likely to have a parent who doesn't work full-time and so you have more time with your parent. Or you might be able to belong to a swim and tennis club where you hang out with lots of other families and get to know them, and they know you, and you feel a part of something. So, we don't necessarily think, "Oh, a swim and tennis club is going to bring great meaning to my child's life." But in fact, anything that is going to bring that social context where they feel like they have lots of friends and are a part of something larger than themselves is a plus.
*****************
The U.S. is an interesting case. Usually what we see across countries is that as GDP goes up, happiness or subjective well-being tends to go up. The U.S. is kind of a notable case in the sense that in the last 35 years, as GDP has grown, we actually haven't seen our average happiness level go up.

Most people haven't. The rich have gotten much richer and most everybody else has seen their relative wealth drop, and so we aren't seeing an increase in average happiness.