£50k a year salary can buy you happiness!

London: All those who say money can’t buy happiness may have to bite their tongues, as a new study by American scientists suggests that 50,000 pounds can buy you all the joy you need.

The study asked 1000 volunteers whether they had felt joyful, sad, stressed or angry the previous day and whether they’d smiled or laughed a lot. The results showed that the lowest earners found life the biggest struggle, and the struggle eased with increasing salaries. Those earning between 75,000 dollars to 50,000 pounds seemed the happiest lot. Surprisingly though, those earning 100,000 pounds and 150,000 pounds are no more happy than those earning 50,000 pounds. “Perhaps USD 75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve a person’s ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being – such as spending time with the people they like, avoiding pain and disease and enjoying leisure,” a news daily quoted the Princeton University researchers as saying. The study also revealed that envy at being lower in the social pecking order tarnishes the satisfaction of being well off. Dr Chris Boyce, of the University of Warwick, said, “Earning 1million pounds a year appears not to be enough to make you happy if you know your friends all earn 2million pounds a year.” The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ANI