Money and happiness is a very broad topic with many different factors. People can have very different opinions on the topic, depending on aspects of their lives such as expectations, social customs and ethnicity. The subcategory explored in this essay concerns a small population of people. Money Can Be Helpful, From the research below, it may be evident that money is more trouble than it's worth when it comes to millionaires. Millionaires find themselves trapped in an endless routine and social pressure prevents them from backing out. This creates an environment where it is difficult to grow happiness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The general population actually thinks that wealth does not substantially increase happiness. These predictions are true, wealth and happiness stagnate and do not increase until a large threshold is reached. The chances of reaching that threshold are very slim. The article by Jeremy Cone and Thomas Gilovich, psychology professors at Cornell University, entitled Understanding Money's Limits: People's Beliefs About the Income – Happiness Correlation, focused on analyzing the general perception of the population regarding money and happiness. Participants were asked to predict the false wealth of two individuals and to correlate the amount of money each owned with that wealth. The study found that “…participants' estimates appear to reflect a genuine belief that income and happiness are only weakly correlated.” Now that's just what people think. So is there a real correlation with wealth and happiness? Another article aimed to prove this, written by Grant E. Donnelly, Tianyi Zheng, Emily Haisley and Michael I. Norton, all university professors, The Amount and Source of Millionaires' Wealth (Moderately) Predict Their Happiness. This article looked at the association of happiness with money and found that between $1 million and $10 million there was no increase in happiness, although above $10 million there was a large increase in happiness (Norton, Haisley, Donnelly , Zheng, 2018). According to an article by PK of DQYDJ the probability of reaching $10,000,000 is 1% (PK, 2019). The general population seems to have a broad idea of ​​the link between wealth and happiness. With the second article it is clear that the predictions about the general population are correct. Happiness increases substantially after $10 million involving merit, but the chance of someone achieving such wealth in America is 1%. If an individual reaches that level of wealth, what stops him from being happy? Wealth is not the contributing factor to happiness for millionaires. Millionaires care about those around them. What some millionaires do to feel better than others is brandish their wealth. To expand on this statement there is a series of interviews by Jason Pinsker, a writer for the Atlantic Times, in his article The Reason Many Ultrarich People Are Not Satisfied with Their Wealth. In this article, he talks to Michael Norton, a Harvard economics professor who studies the wealthy. Pinsket wrote: “Norton says research regularly points to two central questions people ask themselves when determining whether they are satisfied with something in their lives: Am I doing better than I was before? and am I doing better than other people?" (Pinsker, 2018). With this information it can be hypothesized that wealth can arouse a sort of social awareness in those who possess it. Another quote from the article is from Brooke Harrington,professor at Copenhagen Business School. She said this when asked about the insecurities of millionaires: “The feeling of being wealthy isn't about fulfilling a childhood dream of buying a sailboat or something; feeling rich means comparing yourself to others in your reference group. So the question is not what individuals want to buy, but what they feel they must buy to maintain their status”. (Pinsker, 2018). What appears to be equally important to the wealth that millionaires are gaining is the social status that comes with it. The more money they have, the more opportunities arise to display that wealth through objects. Material goods come into play in this game of hierarchy within the small community of the ultra-rich. Sometimes wealth is given through inheritance or luck. While winning a lot of money through smart business ventures or receiving it may make us all jump for joy, it brings with it problems. According to the amount and source of millionaires' wealth, predict (moderately) their happiness. They asked participants who own $1 million to $10 million how much money they had received as an inheritance. With this data collected, they found that, on average, unearned wealth leads to decreased happiness. With their findings they proposed that perhaps earned wealth seems more valuable to the individual and therefore increases happiness (Norton, Haisley, Donnelly, Zheng, 2018). If what they say is true, then the act of gaining wealth is an important factor. Further supporting this is another interview from The Reason Why Many Ultra-Rich People Are Unhappy With Their Wealth. In this interview Gary Shteyngart, a novelist, talks about his interactions with luck-based millionaires. He said: “Hedge fund managers can sometimes get rich by making a bet or two that have more to do with luck than anything else, which could make them feel like their intelligence is in question even if their money is proof of their professionalism. success." It appears with this evidence that the problem that arises from unearned wealth is insatiable happiness. Money does not carry the weight that it would if it were earned. You may need to earn wealth to feel a sense of happiness and satisfaction. If wealth is not earned, the individual may also feel less intelligent than their peers. With money at the forefront of most millionaires' minds, you may now be wondering how much is enough from The Amount and Source of Millionaires' data. Wealth (moderately) Predict their happiness, they found that happiness between one million and ten million dollars does not increase happiness. The researchers also asked participants who earned from 1 to 10 million dollars, how much money they would need for be satisfied. For millionaires to be a perfect 10 in happiness, 23.2% said they needed a 100% raise, 24.5% said they needed a 500% raise, and 26. .8% said they needed a 1000% increase in their wealth. It seems that despite all that money they are still no closer to happiness. One reason could be because they don't feel financially secure. Supporting this statement is an interview from the article In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich by Gary Rivlin, a writer for the New York Times. David W. Hettig, a Menlo Park planner, said this: "People around here, if they have 2 or 3 million dollars, don't feel safe." another interviewee, Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com, said: "You're nobody here with 10smillion dollars,” Kremen also said, “Everyone around here looks at the people above them” (Rivlin, 2007). So how much is enough? Lots of short answers, long answers, happiness is not in the number but somewhere in the their status. If said millionaires always looked above them the richest. Then it is logical that they would want a higher and higher number than those above them. Most likely they determine this number based on the people around them or those who look up to them. That's why we see such high numbers, like an increase from 100% to 1000%. Once someone reaches a higher level of wealth (top 9%), living a lavish life continues to drain millionaires' funds due to social mores. of the communities around them. This mentality is captured perfectly by Tony Barbgallo, a product manager with a net worth of 1.5 million, who talks about how "fancy resorts, vintage wines and country clubs" they used to attend are no longer good enough to. because of other people living around them boasting of more lavish experiences. To put it simply, Barbgallo said: “…the cost of living is increasing” (Rivlin, 2007). Another example of this is that of Michael Norton, an economics professor at Harvard, who described what he called the “…ever-changing goal post.” What he means by this is that when a rich family with money moves to a new community with even richer people, it puts them down. They do not feel as wealthy as if they had stayed in their old neighborhood (Pinsker, 2018). Obtaining happiness from wealth is a difficult goal to achieve. It seems that millionaires like Barbgallo are always looking at the next obstacle to overcome to prove to others that they are better. Millionaires seek to increase their status through material possessions and imaginative travel. This drains them of their funds and requires them to always keep working because of the people around them. Every country has its richest countries and many of us dream of reaching the main breadwinners of the country. While most never reach this goal, ideally we let the upper class get richer every year. This is the fault of countries' controls on the rich, but above all of people's unawareness of how wide the class gap really is. Economic injustice or inequality is a problem that slowly grows bigger every year. From the following exploration it is evident that inequality is an issue that requires attention. Economic inequality is not just about money, but plays a bigger role in the lives of citizens of every country. What makes a country attractive to the rich? A logical factor would be tax breaks and living standards. How important are these aspects for the extremely upper class? An extensive research paper written by Vladimir Popov, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, examined the effects of income inequality and what makes a country attractive to the wealthy. In his first article titled Why do some countries have more billionaires than others? Explaining the variations in GDP billionaire intensity, he found that there are a few factors. An obvious thought would be for the rich to go to the countries with the greatest tax breaks. Vladimir actually disproves this by showing that the most important factors are living standards, crime rates and life expectancy. Vladimir found that in most countries with high taxes, the standard of living was better on average. Using data from the World Happiness Report by GDP, Vladimir determined that the country with the most rich people was Hong Kong, China, with Cyprus behind. He also found that countries with a personal income taxlittle or no money, such as Oman and Bahrain, do not attract the rich due to their low standard of living (Popov, 2018). Lisa Kiester, a sociology professor at Duke University, wrote about another factor that may play a role in why the rich go to certain countries. In his article titled The One Percent, he stated: “…we tend to spend most of our time with people like us. Even those who are extremely rich or extremely poor spend most of their time in the company of other very rich or very poor people…” (Kiester 2014). Given these factors, the standard of living, crime rate and life expectancy play the most important role in attracting the rich. It seems that rich people also like to get together to create a like-minded community. Taxes would be a logical factor, but they are easily outweighed by other more attractive factors such as life expectancy and crime rate. A perfect country for the rich is a developed one with already rich inhabitants and a high standard of living. It is almost impossible to balance your standard of living and taxes. That said, how does this affect the people below them? One big effect that the rich have is through economic inequality. It is an inevitable factor that comes with attractive countries and unattractive countries. Inequality leads to economic stagnation and an ever-widening gap between the upper class and all those below. Lisa Keister's The One Percent found that the richest 10% of the world's population holds more than 74% of the world's financial assets (Keister 2014). Keister explained why most people don't care about this is because: “Even if inequality gets worse, most people tend to fare better. Some segments of the population fare worse over time, but people fare better than previous generations. This creates individual well-being even in the face of growing inequality” (Keister 2014). Vladmir Popov in his essay Billionaires, millionaires, inequality and happiness. Living richly in underdeveloped countries has been found to lead to economic stagnation. He also found that when inequality in countries is greater, children of that upper class tend to have wealth at the same levels as their parents (Popov, 2019). Wealth that lasts for generations creates an economic gap that does not disappear in a generation, leading to longer times of stagnation. The problem is that people don't notice this in developed countries because living standards have increased over time. The only time this is worrisome is when it occurs in underdeveloped countries where it has the harshest effects. Vladimir stated a harsh truth about how underdeveloped countries could stop stagnation. He said: “A revolution may be needed to break this vicious circle and get out of the bad equilibrium.” How does economic inequality affect the poorest? High income inequality in poorer countries has in some cases had a positive effect. Vladimir found in Billionaires, Millionaires, Inequality and Happiness, that poor countries in South America such as Bolivia and Honduras with large income inequalities have very high happiness indices based on GDP. Vladimir speculated by saying this: “It may be that a certain degree of inequality is necessary to keep alive a kind of 'American dream': a future-oriented belief in getting rich and achieving success in life” (Popov, 2019). Another perspective on the underclass comes from Carol Graham, a University of Maryland professor who focuses on the global economy. Carol wrote a.