on money and happiness and charity

[coraa]

When I was a tween and a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. I don't mention this very much because I don't feel that we had sufficiently little money to complain about -- we had food, a place to live, and health insurance (via my dad's retirement package from the Army); when I grew -- which I did a lot as a teen, as did my brother, of course -- I could get new clothes, I had a warm coat in the winter, we had a car that ran. We were okay.

But we weren't great. My mom would hold off on buying bread and milk until her paycheck came through. The house was always cold, because it wasn't very energy-efficient, and we couldn't afford either to have better insulating installed or to heat the house until it was warm. At midwinter, I -- who have not-great circulation -- was basically never warm except when I was having a hot bath. (This is part of why I don't like living in cold climes. The other is that, no matter how much I bundle up, some part of me is aching and painful with cold when I go outside.)

And while this was going on, my comfortably-middle-class friends, and their parents, would make blithe and stupid statements like:

Poor people are so much happier -- they don't have as much to worry about.

I wouldn't want to win the lottery -- it just causes problems.

Money isn't everything.

As long as you love each other, income doesn't matter.

You can't buy happiness.

And I always wanted to hit them over the head with a big mallet. A big one. And then go through their pockets and take the money that didn't buy happiness, because obviously they didn't think they needed it.

To be fair, they weren't entirely wrong. You can't spend your way out of emotional problems. If you're not getting along with your family, if your partner is not good to you, Prada handbags won't make it better. If you have no agency or goals or drive in your life, a vacation to the Bahamas won't satisfy your soul.

But.

But, you know, it's really hard to be happy when you're cold. When you're hungry. When you have no bed on which to lay your head. It's hard to be happy when you have one set of clothes to your name, and you can't get a job because the clothes you have aren't appropriate for an interview. It's hard to be happy when you know your kids will never be able to go to college. It's hard to be happy when you know that you can't afford the car that you need to drive to the workplace that could maybe get you out of your hole. It's hard to be happy when your mother is dying and you can't afford the plane ticket to go see her and hold her hand before she does.

It's hard.

And all the love in the world won't make it okay when you go to sleep in the backseat of your car, hungry and cold, knowing that your child is hungry and cold. Sure, it's better than being in that situation when you're not with someone you love. But it's a far cry from being with someone you love and being, you know, sufficiently warm and well-fed.

Right now, I am a lucky person. I have a job at a wonderful company that pays me well. I live with someone I love. I am very comfortable. I am happier than I was when I was poor. Of course, if I had to choose between the person that I love and the money, I'd choose the person that I love. But that's a fucking false dichotomy. It's entirely possible to have enough money to be comfortable -- to have a roof over your head, the lights on and the heat on, food in your fridge, clothes on your back -- and still be with the person you love.

But when I hear comfortably middle-class people say, "Oh, money isn't everything," or "Money can't buy happiness," it makes me think: Bull. Fucking. Shit. Because it's easier to be happy if you're well-fed and reliably housed and have clothes and heat and so on, than if you don't. And the reason it makes me angry instead of just frustrated is that it's sometimes -- perhaps even often -- used as an excuse. I don't have to give to charity, because poor people are happier and more noble than me with my reliable income and healthy savings! I don't have to worry about the problem of poverty -- of people who are cold and hungry in my community -- because they are somehow ~~~better off~~~ than me in some mystical way, and never mind that they can't get a job because they need new clothes and better transportation! I can, in fact, feel sorry for myself for having a comfortable lifestyle because it means I'm somehow spiritually poorer, and that's so much more important!

Bullshit.

I'm glad that the studies on this are beginning to show that the 'oh, money can't buy happiness!' thing is not totally true. I remember reading a study -- I can't find it now, unfortunately -- that said that, over the $40k/year threshold, happiness didn't correlate with income. But below that... it did. Because above $40k/year, most people can live comfortably, but below it, they can't, and not being able to meet basic needs makes people unhappy. Not being able to buy food, pay rent, pay the gas/electric company, afford health insurance makes people unhappy.

I don't know that I have a point here. Or, well, I guess I do: it's the end of the year, and for a lot of people it's the holidays. It's also, if you're in the northern hemisphere, a time of year when it's getting cold and dark. I'm not going to tell you what charities to give to, but I think charity is important, so I'd encourage you to give. What may seem like a very little money to you might be, to someone else, the difference between feeding yourself and your kid for a day, and... not.

And if you ever think: well, mo money mo problems, poor people don't need my help, money just complicates things for them, they're really better off ~~spiritually~~ than me, so I don't have to worry about it. Well. Think about that for a second, and then see if you really believe that you'd be happier without food, heat, electricity, a roof over your head, or health care.

If you're poor, don't feel that you're a bad person for not appreciating the simple gift of poverty, because poverty sucks ass. You don't need to feel guilty for wanting comfort.

And if you're comfortable, give. Give in whatever way makes you happy. But share the wealth, because some people are not comfortable, and the happy fable that it's better that way is just not true. But you can help.

Comments

[erik]

I was in a similar situation growing up; maybe one step further from abject poverty than you, but still close enough to be able to see it from where I stood. This post rings very true for me. Thank you.

[coraa]

I'm glad to hear that. (That the post rang true, I mean, not that you were in a similar situation when you were younger!) Thank you. :)

[ironed_orchid]

Having to worry about whether you will be able to pay bills and eat adds a level of constant stress which makes it very hard to relax. So perhaps money can't buy happiness^TM but it can make life easier, and as you say, comfortable. And when you know you can meet all those basic expenses, then you actually can sit down and think about what you actually want from life.

[ceph.livejournal.com]

I boggle that anyone could make that argument and believe it. Hell, if money isn't buying them happiness, why are they holding on to it?

Thanks for reminding me to make my charitable donations. (Although, maybe anonymously this time so they result in less forest-destroying mailspam.)

Oh, and speaking of studies about money and happiness, I recently ran across these studies that show money makes you happier when you give it away.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

You know, I have actually heard people answer the 'why are they holding onto it?' question in a way that was actually self-pitying. Oh, I can't let go of my death grip on my money, because unlike those blessed poor people, who are noble and free, I'm TRAPPED! By my LIFESTYLE! Pity me my car and my house and my fancy restaurant dining and my millionty electronic toys because they are a sign of my SPIRITUAL POVERTY! Also, what would my friends think if I gave up conspicuous consumption? And I can't help it, because I'm ENSLAVED!

Now, I have a nice house and a lot of books and toys, and I eat out, but for gods' sake, I don't pity myself for it. And I know that if I started to feel trapped by said belongings, I could, you know, sell them, or give them away, or at very least stop buying more.

Sigh.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I do occasionally feel trapped by my belongings. I grew up not having things like a fridge, clean underwear, blankets... Sometimes I look at things that I own, like a game or an expensive book on some topic like the Japanese language, and I think "What possessed me to spend mony on this unnecessary thing when I could have saved it for underwear? It doesn't matter if I could afford it at the time - Someday when I don't have underwear I'll regret that." But this has nothing to do with being rich or poor... it has to do with being depressed or not. Depression causes me to think unproductive things like that, not belongings (unless, I suppose, I bought the book instead of medication).

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. But it's not quite the same thing: I doubt you use that to 'prove' that you're as bad off as someone who doesn't have enough to eat. (In fact, I'm sure of it: if the reason you feel that discretionary spending is bad is because you're afraid you might need the money for essentials later, you certainly aren't in a mindset that thinks that poverty is peachy!)

Feeling trapped by stuff is one thing, and a perfectly valid emotion; feeling that that's as bad as poverty is another, and that's what I find objectionable.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not really the same thing at all, given that much of my brain's depressive argument comes from an understanding of what it's like to do without. But I guess my point is that I can see pretty clearly that possessions do not cause unhappiness - they're just one possible scapegoat for it. I don't think it's strange that when people are unhappy, they will think it's caused by incredibly illogical things (depression has certainly taught me a lot about how nonsensical one's brain can get and subjectively appear to make sense). I hear what you're saying about self justification though.

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

"You can't buy happiness."

I can never figure out who originally said it, but i love the quote (which i may be mangling of course) "I've been rich and unhappy, and I've been poor and unhappy, and I can tell you that rich is better."

And yeah, i've seen reports about that study too. Once you're over $40k being happy is more important than being rich, but there's a pretty strong causation between poor and unhappy =P

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yes. Sure, money won't fix emotional problems. But lack of money certainly won't make them better. If you're rich and having trouble with your partner or your kids, then you might feel awful, but at least your emotional pain (which should not be denigrated) isn't compounded by hunger or cold or worrying about losing your apartment. And while money doesn't make an emotional problem better, neither does lack of money!

It gets me that it's news to anyone that it's not fun to be very poor.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

It's one of those cognitive biases, powerfully reinforced by cultural mandate: everything comes out fair in the end. Poor people are poor-but-happy; rich people bawl into their crocodile purses when nobody's looking.

I think it's a particularly self-protecting middle-class thing, but it's also like, if you're such a fan of the purification of suffering, I bet I can find a poor person out there who would like to switch places with you. This is not even a new joke, as Mark Twain beat me to it a century and change ago, and surely he was cribbing off somebody.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's very true. And the idea that everything doesn't come out fair is really uncomfortable for people, but it's also true. Sometimes things just don't come out fair.

And it is possible to sell all you own, give the proceeds to the poor, and live a life of poverty. Some people even do it. But you'd think, if people really believed that was the path to happiness, that they'd do it more often....

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Yes, this, a thousand times over.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

:)

[zalena.livejournal.com]

How did you arrive at $40/K and how many people on that income?

[coraa.livejournal.com]

It's not my number, so I can't answer how it was obtained. Some poking around points to the following sources:

R. Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2005)

E. Diener and M. E. P. Seligman, “Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 5: 1–31 (2004)

B. S. Frey and A. Stutzer, Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-Being (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002)

R. A. Easterlin, “Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory,” Economic Journal 111: 465–84 (2001)

D. G. Blanchflower and A. J. Oswald, “Well-Being over Time in Britain and the USA,” Journal of Public Economics 88: 1359–86 (2004).

T. Scitovsky, The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976)

Since I haven't read the studies, just works citing them and others, I don't know how they were obtained, or for households of what size. I assume it must be an average, given wildly differing costs of living between, say, Omaha and San Francisco.

EDIT: Er, belatedly I realize that a citation dump can come off as snitty, and I didn't mean it that way at all -- I just mean that I don't know where the figures came from, but that those references might shed more light.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

No worries, I was just curious, as I and most the planet are a long way away from 40K. By 'how many people' I meant what size household on 40K.

I'm not in disagreement with your sentiments or with correct citations. (How did she get that many that fast? I wondered.) It just seems an awfully high benchmark to happiness.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

Good point - I'm well below 40k this year (though I had two good years before to make up for it) and by my standards I'm living like a queen.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Right. I thought I was rolling in dough in my first job out of college, and that was less than $40k/year. But part of it is that, before that point, I was living on quite a lot less, and having trouble paying for things like vital dental work.

Which actually was the point of the studies -- going from $15k/year to $25k/year can make people happier, because they can pay for more necessities of life, but going from, oh, $50k/year to $80k/year doesn't, statistically speaking, make people happier. Not that everyone below $40k/year is miserable, but that past that point, more money won't increase happiness.

I think I did not explain that well in the original post.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

So that's the average saturation level? (not the level below which you lack important things, but the level above which there aren't many happiness increasing things you could buy and haven't)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's my understanding. (And yeah, I think it must be an average, because I have a really hard time believing that the number itself is the same for cities with very different cost of living.)

Again, not an expert, have read some books that touch on the subject but haven't read the studies themselves, so I could be totally wrong.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I think it's not that you can't be happy below $40/k, it's just that that's the point at which, statistically speaking, adding more money won't make you happier. So someone might be quite happy making $20k/year, but statistically speaking there's a real chance that the added advantages that another $10k/year could bring would make them happier. Whereas someone making $70k/year has very little statistical chance of being happier if they add $10k/year -- or even if they add $30k/year. Going from $15k to $25k has a very real chance of making someone happier; going from $60k to $100k doesn't.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this well. But yes, you're absolutely right that many people are quite happy with quite a bit less. I don't think the studies disagree with that.

(And as for how I got the cites so fast -- Kindle search function. ;) )

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

I think the 40k estimate makes more sense if it is used as a gauge for how much yearly income can free someone up from the possible unhappiness that financial obligation can create, since worry can crush you like an aluminum can.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Put that way, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you!

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

I get very wistful when I hear people discuss the concept of happiness in terms of on and off, as if it were some sort of binary condition-- this makes me happy, that doesn't. Or if happiness was a collectible commodity; if I have x amount of this it will result in y amounts of happy. I feel happiness must be practiced, and can only be evaluated in the long term, and I also believe it is hard work. I try to think of happiness as a skill, like wood carving or calligraphy (or playing the guitar, which I seem to suck at). I believe it is Aristotle that considered happiness only achievable through the process of living. It's interesting that these days there seems to be some research to back up his concept, as I understand it, that living a life filled with good deeds and kindness will further the practice of happiness, and that wealth will not get the job done, but a certain level of poverty makes the process of achieving a skill in happiness very difficult. Happiness should be a project that is not dependent on a moment's pleasure, but on the cumulative effort of an individual through out their life time-- on the sum of all the parts of their existence. I have appreciated being poor, it has made me much richer than if I hadn't been (sigh, sorry, I will shut up now. Four hours of sleep makes me spout this sort of nonsense)

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren't we happy? The American Psychologist, 54, 821-827.

It's a source for the paper I'm writing RIGHT NOW.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Also, that is one hell of a name.

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

I love Csikzsentmihalyi's ideas! Good, tasty stuff.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Chick-sent-mee-hi-lee.

I had to learn to say it because my publication, and now my dissertation, is based on a theory that he came up with, and so I will have to pronounce his name when giving talks at conferences. :P

[dancambull.livejournal.com]

Of course, you can give without giving money too. We are registered marrow donors and donate blood. We also organized a food drive at our University. It really does make you happy to give what you can.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Very true!

[ckd]

I think the expanded truth is that money can't buy happiness, but a sufficient lack of money will sure as hell sell you unhappiness.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

And there you sum up in one sentence what took me, like, fifteen paragraphs. :D Thank you, yes, that's exactly it.

[mswyrr]

Money can't buy happiness, but happiness can't be had without a certain bare minimum of things (food, clothes, services). Maslow's pyramid and all that. If you can't get past the most basic needs, you can't move onto the fulfillment and other good things.

UGh.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Right. It's hard to relax and take pleasure in life when you're worrying about necessities. Not impossible, of course, but hard.

[http://users.livejournal.com/greensleeves_/]

A very insightful post, and one I definitely agree with. :)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

:)

[paperclippy.livejournal.com]

I agree. However, I always got the impression that when people said poor people were happy they were referring to, say, tribesmen in the bush, rather than people on the streets of a US city. Not that that makes it any better, but the things required to be middle-class in one society are not the same as the things required to be middle-class in another society.

I think part of the reason that people who are more well-off cling to the "money doesn't buy happiness" saying is because they are perhaps not happy with what they have, but they know that more money would not make them any happier. On the other hand, having enough money to not have to work seems like it would make anybody happy.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I think part of the reason that people who are more well-off cling to the "money doesn't buy happiness" saying is because they are perhaps not happy with what they have, but they know that more money would not make them any happier.

I think that's part of it, yeah. If you've always been over the 'enough money to be comfortable' threshold, it may be harder to emotionally understand what it's like to be under that threshold, where more money really can make a difference.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well said. "Money doesn't guarantee happiness," that of course I would agree with. But what money can buy is the comfort, the breathing space, the lack of stress, that allows one to seek out and enjoy the things that do bring happiness.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Right. And it's absolutely true that some problems have nothing to do with money, and money can't fix an unhappiness-causing non-monetary problem; if you're on bad terms with your parents, or you're lonely, or you feel helpless, going shopping won't make a damn bit of good. But some unhappiness-causing problems are monetary, and if you're unhappy because they're going to turn off your electricity, money certainly can help.

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there really is something amazing about being able to buy things that I want, instead of deciding which things I don't need and which to wait and save for. I think, though, that not having a lot of money has helped me now know which things I have no interest in and to be good at saving money. But Matt is good at those things too, without my occasionally crippling worry about not having enough money saved, which I think also comes from growing up poor.

I think I was lucky enough to not have some of your worries. My dad ran a soup kitchen, so I was never worried about not having enough to eat -- there were always more dumpsters to dive. (And, as the years went by, grocery stores that saved their usable food for us.) And we always seemed to have an abundance of hand-me-downs, which I know some kids are embarrassed about, but I always loved. There's something about getting a skirt you've been coveting for a year from your sister that's just fantastic.

Oh, and one way to make giving to charity easier, can be just putting it into your budget to begin with. We just have a certain amount each month that's for charity, and rolls over when we don't spend it. So whenever we do write checks, we just write them for as much as we have in the charity account right then.

Anyways, just some of the things your post made me think of.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, and yes!

[coloronline.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Won't add much because frankly, I've had the debate too often and I've worked with, lived with, have family who are really poor and I've had my share of hard times, too.

Just wanted to say thanks for the post and the comments it elicited.