{"id":2199,"date":"2016-03-02T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T15:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=2199"},"modified":"2016-03-01T23:32:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T06:32:44","slug":"what-percent-are-you-in-and-will-it-make-you-happier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2016\/03\/02\/what-percent-are-you-in-and-will-it-make-you-happier\/","title":{"rendered":"What Percent are You In, and Will it Make You Happier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Would you rather make $100,000 a year or $200,000 a year? You probably think that\u2019s a dumb question, and in its current form, it is. Of course you would rather take home twice the money. You can make the argument that you\u2019d have to work more, or work in a field you don\u2019t like, but for this case, we\u2019re assuming that for the same job, if you could either make 100,000 or 200,000 dollars, you\u2019d pick 200,000. However, the answer may actually change based on what your peers make. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/science\/science-news\/3315638\/Relative-wealth-makes-you-happier.html\">Researchers have found people are happier based on their relative wealth rather than your absolute wealth<\/a>. So, let\u2019s ask the question again with a twist. Would you rather make $200,000 and your peers make $300,000, or would you rather make $100,000 and your peers make $50,000? The research suggests that you would be happier making the 100K instead of 200K.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On a related note, the New York Times has an interactive map of the United States, which poses the question <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2012\/01\/15\/business\/one-percent-map.html?ref=economy\">\u201cWhat Percent are you?\u201d<\/a> Not only does it tell what percent you are in compared to the rest of the United States, you can also type in a figure for household income, and it will tell what percent you are in in a particular \u201czone\u201d or area. For instance, a household income of $100,000 puts you in the top 7% in Flint, Michigan, but the same income puts you in the top 40% around San Francisco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Would you rather make $100,000 a year or $200,000 a year? You probably think that\u2019s a dumb question, and in its current form, it is. Of course you would rather take home twice the money. You can make the argument that you\u2019d have to work more, or work in a field you don\u2019t like, but for this case, we\u2019re assuming that for the same job, if you could either make 100,000 or 200,000 dollars, you\u2019d pick 200,000. However, the answer may actually change based on what your peers make. Researchers have found people are happier based on their relative wealth <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2016\/03\/02\/what-percent-are-you-in-and-will-it-make-you-happier\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  What Percent are You In, and Will it Make You Happier<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":500,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[131,330,359],"class_list":["post-2199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-income-inequality","tag-money","tag-relative-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2200,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions\/2200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}