The Secret to Happiness? Wealth, Says New Poll

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Mansion

Money does buy happiness. Perhaps the relief from anxiety about emergency funds or retirement money is part of it. Or the very rich believe that they can pay off their mortgages, if they have not done so already. They can travel, own second homes and put their children, and perhaps grandchildren, through college.

A new survey done for Spectrem’s Millionaire Corner shows:

Happiness rises steadily with net worth, according to our results. Less than one-fourth of investors with a net worth of less than $100,000 (not including primary residence) rated their happiness as a nine or a ten. Compare that to 44 percent for Millionaires with a net worth of $5 million or more (NIPR).

“Americans express very complex and contradicting attitudes toward wealth,” said Catherine McBreen, president of Millionaire Corner. “There’s a real reluctance to associate money with happiness and love, but our data indicate that the wealthy feel significantly more satisfied with the lives they lead.”

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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