Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- Happiness can be linked to money, and if people feel better about how they are doing financially compared to peers, they are even happier, U.S. research shows. In a paper presented Sunday at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in Philadephia, Penn State researcher Glenn Firebaugh and Harvard graduate student Laura Tach, argued that in evaluating incomes, people are more likely to look at people in their own age bracket. Advertisement Firebaugh and Tach claim people take into account both absolute -- how much money they make, and relative, how much they make compared to peers -- when they consider how happy there are. But it's the "relative" aspect that appears to be the most important, an ASA release said. The researchers measured age, total family income and stated general happiness of 20- to 64-year-olds, controlling for health, education, effects of getting older, race and marital status. The data showed that physical health was the best single predictor of happiness, followed by income, education and marital status. The researchers found the higher relative income, the happier you will tend to be.
