Yes, you can buy happiness

[dArKeR]

By Ira Carnahan
Updated: 11:53 a.m. ET May  14, 2004

Conventional grandmother wisdom says you can't put a price tag on happiness. Oh, really? A couple of economists, David Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University in Britain, have attempted to do just that, assigning dollar values to the unhappiness that goes with, say, being divorced or jobless. It seems that you can buy happiness, but it's awfully expensive.

Happiness comes at a price

Here's the increase in income it would take to compensate the typical American for the unhappiness that goes with being:

At home
$6,000


Male
$13,000


Black
$31,000


Never married
$49,000


Unemployed
$60,000


Divorced
$66,000


Widowed
$75,000

As the table shows, for example, they estimate that a divorced person would need to receive another $66,000 a year to be as happy as a married person with the same education, job status and other characteristics. How do they come up with such results? By analyzing surveys to see how much people's happiness varies with the amount of money they make, their race, whether they're employed and much else. Looking at it simply, a black American, for example, would have to earn $100,000 to be as happy as a white earning $69,000, all other things being equal.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4979273/

It's funny, I would only be happy when Democrats are elected to office and immoral Repukes and Lying American GOP Media Whores are put in an Iraqi prison.

[TacticalPeek]

1. Can I put it on the tab?

I'll gladly repay you Tuesday, for happiness today.

:)

[prole_for_peace]

2. you can always rent it....