#Money can actually buy you happiness, study shows

A recent study published in the scientific journal Emotion found that financial success has been increasingly linked to happiness over the past few decades.

Among US adults aged 30 and above, “the positive correlation between socioeconomic status” – which includes income, education, and occupational prestige – “ and happiness grew steadily stronger between the 1970s and 2010s,” researchers found in the national General Social Survey.

“Associations between income and happiness were linear, with no tapering off at higher levels of income,” the study says.

Between 1972 and 2016, the “happiness” of high socioeconomic status white adults was “fairly stable,” while the happiness of low socioeconomic status white adults “steadily declined,” according to the study.

Among black adults, the happiness of those with low socioeconomic status was “fairly stable,” whereas the happiness of high socioeconomic status adults “increased,” the study found.

“Thus, the happiness advantage favoring high-SES [socioeconomic status] adults has expanded over the decades,” researchers said.

Lead author of the study, Jean Twenge, told FOX Business, “The happiness-income link has gotten steadily stronger over the decades — happiness is more strongly related to income now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s.”

“So money buys happiness more now than in the past,” Twenge added.