The Pay Raise People Say They Need to Be Happy

People are often convinced their lives would improve if only they could climb a few rungs on the income ladder.

They are right, to an extent. Many studies have found a link between income and happiness, both in terms of day-to-day mood and longer-term life satisfaction. Having more money would help many people afford necessities, and on average, richer people report being happier.

Exactly how much more money do we think we need to be happy? A new survey from the financial-services company Empower put the question to about 2,000 people.

In the survey, most people said it would take a pretty significant pay bump to deliver contentment. The respondents, who had a median salary of $65,000 a year, said a median of $95,000 would make them happy and less stressed. The highest earners, with a median income of $250,000, gave a median response of $350,000.

Employers are planning on an average pay increase of 3.9% in 2024 for nonunion employees, according to a survey from the consulting firm Mercer. In the Empower survey, Americans said that to be happy, they would need almost a 50% raise.

Just how much happier a 3.9% or 50% raise would make any given person is hard to determine, researchers said.

One study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, found that people who randomly received $10,000 tended to get a happiness boost that lasted at least six months. (The $2 million given out in the study was provided by a wealthy couple, who the researchers estimated generated 225 times more happiness than if they had kept the money themselves.)

Another, from the Review of Economic Studies in 2020, looked at lottery winners in Sweden whose prizes were mostly between $100,000 and $500,000. They reported higher levels of satisfaction with their lives more than a decade after their windfall, compared with lottery players who won no prize or a small one.

The magnitude of a raise’s effect, though, might not be life-changing.

“The impact of money on happiness isn’t as large as people typically assume,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and a co-author of a book on money and happiness. “Happiness is determined by so many different factors that changing any one thing, it’s hard to have a huge impact.”

Happiness for sale

About seven in 10 respondents in the Empower survey said they strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: “Having more money would solve most of my problems.” Similar proportions of people in each income bracket felt that way, including those with salaries of $200,000 or more.

Dunn said that many people might be happier if they focus on the best ways to use the money they have, rather than on getting more of it.

“That’s something that we know makes a difference and that people have control over in the immediate term,” she said.

Dunn said many people over emphasise money, relative to other variables, as a path to contentment. Her research indicates that those who give priority to time over money tend to be happier in life.

A little bit more

And as soon as someone does reach a new pay tier, they often start focusing on the next one as their target recalibrates.

“They might imagine that once they get the higher salary, then that’ll be enough,” said Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who studies the causes of happiness. “In reality, once they get there, they’ll probably want a little bit more.”

Even very wealthy people think like this. A 2018 study asked millionaires to rate their happiness on a scale from one to 10 and, if they didn’t say 10, predict how much money they would need to move one point higher. Slightly over half of those with a net worth of $10 million or more said their wealth would need to increase by at least 50%.

“It’s part of what makes humans amazing,” said Killingsworth of the impulse to continue advancing. “But it also means we rarely look at an aspect of our life and say, ‘That’s absolutely perfect.’”

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

The Pay Raise People Say They Need to Be Happy

We frequently overestimate just how much happiness money buys

Happiness for sale

A little bit more

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.