Is It Possible To Maximize Happiness For Every American?

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that emotional well-being in Americans increases with family income up to ~$75,000 (in 2008 dollars). Beyond $75,000, more money no longer improves the emotional quality of the everyday experiences of individuals in the household.

I think one goal of every society should be to maximize happiness for all of its citizens. Naturally, the question I asked myself when I heard about this study was: "Would it even be currently possible for every American to maximize their happiness (under an admittedly drastic redistribution plan), based upon the total national income and the number of households?"

In short, the answer is YES.

The total national income is about $12.9 trillion [source; note that here income includes salary, investment returns, etc.]. The total number of households in the United States is about 105.2 million source.

$12.9 trillion/105.2 million households = $122,623/household

This gives everyone more than enough to be happy! Of course, it leaves no room for some people to make more money than others, which many people believe is an important motivational force. What if we just give every household the bare minimum of $75,000? How much money would that leave for the more ambitious members of society to compete over?

105.2 million households * $75,000/household = $7.89 trillion

$12.9 trillion - $7.89 trillion = $5.01 trillion

That's a whole $5 trillion that the rich can fight over! After all, that's enough for 5,000,000 millionaires, or 5,000 billionaires! Heck, there are only about 400 billionaires in the U.S. right now!! [source] Give a billion to those 400 people and there's still enough for 4,600,000 millionaires or 2,300,000 multimillionaires! Heck, there are only about 2,886,200 millionaire households right now! [source]

I'd say there's plenty of money to maximize every American's day-to-day emotional well-being ("the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, fascination, anxiety, sadness, anger, and affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant") AND to give incentives for people to work hard.

Next post: what happens when we try to do this calculation for the whole world?