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Money correlates with happiness, but the rate diminishes with more money.Richard Easterlin, »Explaining Happiness, 2003 In 2010, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that higher earners generally reported better life satisfaction, but people's day-to-day emotional well-being only rose with earnings until a threshold annual income of $75,000.

Gregg Easterbrook claims that even though wealth, or economic surplus, is more common today than in 1950, people are still as happy (or unhappy) as they were 60 years ago. In polls taken by the National Opinion Research Center, about 1/3 Americans said they were really happy in 1950, since then the polls have been taken periodically, and the results have stayed about the same since then. Wealth has not been making people happier. This is because after the basics for survival are taken care of, money cannot bring people any more happiness than they would experience without it.

Other factors have been suggested as making people happier than money.Rana Foroohar, »"Money v. Happiness: Nations Rethink Priorities", Newsweek, April 5, 2007]. A short term course of psychological therapy is 32 times more cost effective at increasing happiness than simply increasing income., »Money does not make you happy 'but therapy does', The Telegraph, November 20th 2009]Boyce, C. J., & Wood, A. M. (in press). »or mental health: The cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy »staff/alex.wood/money.pdf' Health Economics, Policy and Law One study, when corrected for social status, showed no correlation between income and happiness.

Social security

An alternative perspective focuses on the role of the welfare state as an institution that improves quality of life not only by increasing the extent to which basic human needs are met, but also by promoting greater control of one's life by limiting the degree to which individuals find themselves at the mercy of impersonal market forces that are indifferent to the fate of individuals. This is the argument suggested by the U.S. political scientist Benjamin Radcliff, who has presented a series of papers in peer reviewed scholarly journals demonstrating that a more generous welfare state contributes to higher levels of life satisfaction, and does so to rich and poor alike.Radcliff, Benjamin. 2001. "Politics, Markets, and Life Satisfaction," American Political Science Review, 95 (4): 939-952.Radcliff, Benjamin and Alexander Pacek. 2008. "Assessing the Welfare State: the Politics of Happiness," Perspectives on Politics. 6: 267-277.Alvarez-Diaz, A., Gonzalez, L., and Radcliff, B. 2010. "The Politics of Happiness: On the Political Determinants of Quality of Life in the American States", The Journal of Politics, 72 (3): 894-905.

Employment

Relationships and children

Children tend to decrease parental happiness, at least until they leave home, although in terms of a broader life narrative the opposite may be true. Some research shows that at some ages (toddlers and teenagers) they decrease parental happiness, whereas at others they increase it, averaging out to no overall change. Married people are happier, but it is unclear if this is due to the marriage or if happy people are more likely to marry.

Freedom and control

A study conducted at the University of Zurich suggested that democracy and federalism bring well-being to individuals.Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, »Happiness, Economy and Institutions, 4-5, 1999 It concluded that the more direct political participation possibilities available to citizens raises their subjective well-being. Two reasons were given for this finding. First, a more active role for citizens enables better monitoring of professional politicians by citizens, which leads to greater satisfaction with government output. Second, the ability for citizens to get involved in and have control over the political process, independently increases well-being.

According to a free market think tank Cato Institute, higher economic freedom, as measured by both the Heritage and the Fraser indices, correlates strongly with higher self-reported happiness.

Leisure

Whereas leisure pursuits increase happiness, watching television is an anomaly, as it seems to correlate with lower happiness. This may be because people who watch a lot of television are lacking in better sources of happiness, such as relationships and other leisure pursuits; that is, people watch television if they don't have anything better to do.

Health

Indices