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Speaker 1: Can money buy you happiness? We know how we're supposed

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Speaker 1: to answer that age old question, But even if it can't,

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Speaker 1: having enough money should at least buy you a sense

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Speaker 1: of security. Right as it turns out, maybe not that.

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Speaker 2: Either it's been very difficult, or I've started putting money

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Speaker 2: in a savings account when I get paid, and then

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Speaker 2: two days later I moved back into the checking account.

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Speaker 3: You know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: And that's not you know, it's not because of some

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Speaker 2: big party, lifestyle or anything. It's really just general living.

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Speaker 4: You know. One of my concerns was I didn't want

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Speaker 4: to have to start pulling too much from our retirement

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Speaker 4: too soon. You don't want your money to run out

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Speaker 4: before you don't need it anymore.

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Speaker 5: I just saved just so I could never be caught

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Speaker 5: asked out for lack of a better terment. So if

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Speaker 5: anything happens, I know I could pick myself up.

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Declaire, Ballantine and Craiggiemona surveyed people about how money

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Speaker 1: makes them feel, and they found even having quote unquote

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Speaker 1: enough money doesn't always bring relief from financial anxiety, and

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Speaker 1: later in the show, I talked to Yale School of

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Speaker 1: Management professor Michael Kraus about our complicated relationship with our

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Speaker 1: bank accounts.

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Speaker 6: In common status on our well being is robust and

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Speaker 6: consistent and is there across countries.

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Speaker 1: I'm west Kosova today on the Big Take. How many

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Speaker 1: dollars would it take for you to stop worrying?

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Speaker 3: Claire?

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Speaker 1: Why did you write this story? Where were you trying

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Speaker 1: to get at?

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Speaker 7: We wanted to look at just perceptions of wealth. I mean,

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Speaker 7: I think we've all sort of spent a lot of

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Speaker 7: time thinking about our own personal wealth and that of

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Speaker 7: others comparison, thinking about what we can afford and when,

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Speaker 7: and we sort of notice that whenever you talk to anyone,

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Speaker 7: really everyone's sort of thinking that they're not as well

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Speaker 7: off as they are. So I think we wanted to

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Speaker 7: delve into how people actually feel about their money, which

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Speaker 7: is pretty different than what the sticker price may imply.

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Speaker 1: And Craig, you went about doing this in kind of

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Speaker 1: an interesting way, where you talk to people who you

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Speaker 1: identify as being quote objectively rich. What exactly does that mean?

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Speaker 8: Basically, we use one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars

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Speaker 8: a year as earnings, which roughly puts you in the

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Speaker 8: top ten percent of US tax filers. So if you

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Speaker 8: start to play that out, that means that these people

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Speaker 8: earn more than ninety percent of other Americans, and by

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Speaker 8: global standards.

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Speaker 3: These people are certainly rich.

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Speaker 8: I think we spend a lot of time talking about

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Speaker 8: billionaires the one percent, but these are just regular rich

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Speaker 8: people that make one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars

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Speaker 8: a year. And I think the pandemic sort of opened

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Speaker 8: up a lot of facets of life for re examination.

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Speaker 8: You know, how we work, where we live, and again

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Speaker 8: and again, we were sort of writing stories about people

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Speaker 8: are leaving New York for Florida, people are leaving California

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Speaker 8: for Texas, Everyone's going to Georgia, and again and again

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Speaker 8: the theme was my money can go farther. And in

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Speaker 8: a lot of ways, this is an old question, These

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Speaker 8: are old themes, but I think that the pandemic really

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Speaker 8: put this stuff back into focus.

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Speaker 1: Again, how did you go about doing this? There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of numbers in this story where you're able to

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Speaker 1: quantify things that are often kind of anecdotal.

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Speaker 8: And we worked with an outside survey company who surveyed

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Speaker 8: about one thousand people across the US a statistically relevant survey,

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Speaker 8: and the basic question was do you make one seventy

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Speaker 8: five or above? And they had to say yes. And

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Speaker 8: then the first question we asked them was do you

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Speaker 8: feel rich? The big things on this were do you

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Speaker 8: own your home? What is your net worth? How much

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Speaker 8: you have saved for retirement? And then the questions about

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Speaker 8: mobility was really where the key answers were. But really

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Speaker 8: we were just looking for a way to kind of

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Speaker 8: get at this fundamental question about wealth in a way

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Speaker 8: that felt topical and relevant in the current moment.

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Speaker 1: So if you look at the thousand people who answered

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Speaker 1: the questions, how does it break down how many of

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Speaker 1: them fell rich, how many of them felt okay, and

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Speaker 1: how many of them felt poor?

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Speaker 7: Twenty five percent said that they feel very poor getting

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Speaker 7: vibe but things are tight, About twenty five percent felt rich,

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Speaker 7: and about half described themselves as just comfortable.

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Speaker 1: Claire, when you set out to answer this question, what

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Speaker 1: did you think you were going to find and were

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Speaker 1: you right?

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Speaker 7: One thing we went into was thinking about this idea

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Speaker 7: of comparison, and so we were thinking that people in

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Speaker 7: areas with a lot of inequality, So you know, you

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Speaker 7: think about New York, you have you know, people that

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Speaker 7: are extremely wealthy next to people who don't make a lot,

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Speaker 7: and how that would influence perceptions. We had this idea

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Speaker 7: that maybe, you know, those people would feel not rich

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Speaker 7: because they're comparing themselves to the billionaires flying their helicopters

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Speaker 7: in from the Hamptons. What we found was a little

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Speaker 7: bit different, and I think what we ended up drilling

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Speaker 7: down into more was people's feelings of their own wealth

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Speaker 7: separated out into people who feel rich, people who feel comfortable,

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Speaker 7: people who describe themselves as poor despite all being in

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Speaker 7: this top ten percent range, and drilling down into those

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Speaker 7: people and seeing in how their answers correlated with how

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Speaker 7: much their home was worth and how much they had

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Speaker 7: in retirement savings, and sort of how that self perception

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Speaker 7: was correlated with the assets that they actually had and

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Speaker 7: how they described other aspects of their life.

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Speaker 8: To admit it, we were wrong about a big part

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Speaker 8: of the premise. I think we went into this thinking

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Speaker 8: there was going to be a big geographic breakdown that

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Speaker 8: places like Boise and Salt Lake, where you don't have

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Speaker 8: the fabulous wealth that you find in San Francisco, La,

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Speaker 8: New York, Boston, even Miami, that people would feel better

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Speaker 8: people making one seventy five would feel content in Salt

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Speaker 8: Lake City because everybody in their suburb has the two

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Speaker 8: cars and the same amount of money, and that the

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Speaker 8: people in New York would be the ones that sort

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Speaker 8: of were discontented at that price point because they see

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Speaker 8: people they see finance guys and tech founders who make

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Speaker 8: way more money.

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Speaker 3: That really wasn't the case.

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Speaker 8: The geographic breakdown was not the interesting thing in the results,

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Speaker 8: and what we really focused on was this high level

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Speaker 8: of dissatisfaction across this group. Twenty five percent of these

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Speaker 8: people making one seventy five K and above are describing

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Speaker 8: themselves as poor, very poor, or getting by, which really

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Speaker 8: is the thing that jumped out at.

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Speaker 3: Us and Claire.

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Speaker 1: For this project. You spoke to a number of the

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Speaker 1: people who answered the survey and they told you they

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Speaker 1: were experiencing what they were feeling what you find.

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Speaker 7: We talk to a wide range of people that were

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Speaker 7: by this one hundred and seventy five a year income

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Speaker 7: bracket and found some really interesting examples. The ones that

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Speaker 7: struck me the most were the people that were doing

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Speaker 7: really well on paper but still didn't feel rich.

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Speaker 2: My name is Jane Edwards. I currently live in Brooklyn,

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Speaker 2: and basically I'm a market data person, So I'm kind

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Speaker 2: of one of those you know, Wall Street weirdows that

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Speaker 2: sits between the you know, the dealing floor and the technology.

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Speaker 2: I've been working in banking for about thirty years. I'm

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Speaker 2: very fortunate, you know. I'm up in the like you know,

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Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty hundred and nineteen early two hundred thousands,

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Speaker 2: which is a lot of money. It's a lot of money,

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Speaker 2: it's also a lot of tax I love the job

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Speaker 2: I'm doing, and I love the team I'm working with.

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Speaker 2: If it wasn't for that, I would probably pick up

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Speaker 2: and maybe hit the West Coast, maybe Florida. I flirt

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Speaker 2: with the idea, you know, I always find myself back

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Speaker 2: in New York, but it's become more difficult to live.

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Speaker 7: One of the most interesting was a guy who lived

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Speaker 7: in Texas. He had a home worth almost four hundred

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Speaker 7: thousand dollars there and a condo in Hawaii. He's making

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Speaker 7: more money than he ever has. A household income is

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Speaker 7: about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars between him and

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Speaker 7: his wife, but they don't feel rich. They have these

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Speaker 7: bills for their mortgages on their homes, they have three

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Speaker 7: car payments, their son is going to college. You hear

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Speaker 7: that and you think condo in Hawaii. How could you

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Speaker 7: not feel rich? More money? It's just resulted in more bills.

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Speaker 7: And then one man who moved from New York to

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Speaker 7: Texas where he could get a much bigger apartment for

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Speaker 7: his money.

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Speaker 5: My name is Tioba Paris, originally from Trinida and Tobago.

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Speaker 5: Grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and a current resident

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Speaker 5: of Houston, Texas. I'm thirty three. I'll be thirty four

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Speaker 5: and about a month, and I work in pharmaceutical advertising.

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Speaker 5: I make about one fifty a year. The one thing

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Speaker 5: I like about Texas and one good thing about me

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Speaker 5: being able to move out, was able to keep my

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Speaker 5: New York pay. So when I was having that conversation

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Speaker 5: with a Wiltor and I'm giving him my like raw numbers,

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Speaker 5: He's like, are you sure you want to buy a house?

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Speaker 5: And I was like, no, I don't even know if

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Speaker 5: I like Houston. And he was like so flabberghat. He

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Speaker 5: was like, no, are you do you sure you don't

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Speaker 5: want to buy a house? Like you can? I can

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Speaker 5: get you in the house a slap, and I was like, nah,

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Speaker 5: I don't want I don't.

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Speaker 7: By all accounts doing very well, has a great sneaker

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Speaker 7: collection as a side hustle, but he's still concerned about

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Speaker 7: what happens, you know, if he loses his job and

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Speaker 7: his lifestyle expenses have gone up even despite moving to

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Speaker 7: a cheaper location.

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Speaker 5: I've never felt rich, Like to me, rich is like

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Speaker 5: extreme wealth, Like I don't. I've never had that. I

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Speaker 5: don't even think that's in my stars to have one day,

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Speaker 5: Like just looking at the trajectory of my life and

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Speaker 5: you know, just being being honest with myself, I think

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Speaker 5: I'm doing well compared to my peers, you know what

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Speaker 5: I mean. But at the end of the day, like

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Speaker 5: I still know exactly when I get paid, right, Like

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Speaker 5: that's very front of mine, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 5: Like if I go forbid not going and lost my job,

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Speaker 5: like I would have to get another job immediately. I

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Speaker 5: don't even know that I answered your question, like, I

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Speaker 5: don't feel poor. I'm not poor, obviously, but I am

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Speaker 5: far from what I would consider rich.

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Speaker 7: Then on the flip side, though, one of the women

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Speaker 7: that we talked to who did feel wealthy lived in

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Speaker 7: Minnesota and had raised five kids on a pharmacist salary.

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Speaker 7: She was in a spot where her kids are out

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Speaker 7: of the house, they're all set up, she's retired, her

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Speaker 7: husband is retired, and they're sitting back, you know, as

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Speaker 7: homeowners with retirement savings, really feeling comfortable right now.

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Speaker 4: My name's Mary Phipps and I live in Saint Cloud,

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Speaker 4: Minnesota with my husband. I was a registered pharmacist and

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Speaker 4: director of pharmacy for twenty some years up here in

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Speaker 4: Saint Cloud. I'm sixty six. Hired at age sixty four

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Speaker 4: just before my sixty fifth birthday. The first year was

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Speaker 4: a little nerve racking for me because I had been

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Speaker 4: used to working my whole life and having that regular

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Speaker 4: paycheck coming in. I've been tracking our monthly expenses since retiring,

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Speaker 4: just to get a better handle on it. Boy, it's

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Speaker 4: really hard to know, but I think it's starting to

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Speaker 4: feel comfortable now where we have a good handle on

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Speaker 4: what we need on a monthly basis, and yet still

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Speaker 4: have some to put aside for bigger expenses such as

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Speaker 4: trips and taxes and things such as that.

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Speaker 7: It really runs the gamut, and so many factors go

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Speaker 7: into whether you feel rich or not. But I think

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Speaker 7: we really did see some common themes and got into

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Speaker 7: the psychology a little bit of how people think about

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Speaker 7: their money.

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Speaker 8: Look as we know, like we're just talking about expensive

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Speaker 8: if you have two kids in private school.

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Speaker 3: A lot of these people cited college.

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Speaker 8: I mean, the cost of higher education has absolutely skyrocketed

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Speaker 8: the last twenty or thirty years. I mean we're approaching

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Speaker 8: one hundred thousand dollars a year at the very high end.

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Speaker 3: The ivs are over ninety.

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Speaker 8: So that was a big part of it. That's where

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Speaker 8: I think the tension is in this story.

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Speaker 7: And definitely worry is a big through line through all

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Speaker 7: of it. These people that describe themselves as poor are

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Speaker 7: just getting by. I think that they recognize that they

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Speaker 7: are doing okay. They're surviving, they're paying their bills, they're

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Speaker 7: living their lives, but there's always this worry about money.

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Speaker 7: Some of these people maybe they make a high salary now,

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Speaker 7: but they grew up when things were really tight. Some

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Speaker 7: of them have been through the financial crisis. And people

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Speaker 7: would constantly tell me that all feel rich when I

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Speaker 7: don't have to worry about money, when I don't have

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Speaker 7: to think about money.

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Speaker 1: After the break. Why should we care if the time

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Speaker 1: ten percent doesn't feel rich? And there's another really interesting

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Speaker 1: aspect to this project. It wasn't only surveying Americans, but

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Speaker 1: you also created a tool with Bloomberg's graphics and data

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Speaker 1: team that lets people put in their own information and

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Speaker 1: see how they compare.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 8: We had some help from some very smart, talented people

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Speaker 8: here at Bloomberg. And basically there's a tool within this

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Speaker 8: story that will let you put in your salary, put

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Speaker 8: in your zip code, which then takes you know, to

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Speaker 8: the median wealth in your metro area, let you see

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Speaker 8: where you rank where you live, and then lets you

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Speaker 8: see where you would rank if you moved somewhere else.

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Speaker 8: You know, we were just trying to hit this topic,

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Speaker 8: which is such a hot one during the pandemic of

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Speaker 8: should I move? And this puts some numbers behind, you know,

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Speaker 8: how things would look in different parts of the country.

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Speaker 1: And what's interesting about that too, though, is, as you

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Speaker 1: describe it, even when people are living in areas where

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Speaker 1: their dollars go further, that doesn't necessarily translate into happiness.

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Speaker 8: You're right, I mean, there's still problems in Texas. There

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Speaker 8: are problems in Florida. It's not like things magically get

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Speaker 8: better when you stop paying state income tax. And I

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Speaker 8: think our interviews in the survey data really bring that out.

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Speaker 7: And I think too, the people who are moving and

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Speaker 7: who have these possibilities of moving and the pandemic in

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Speaker 7: generals made people think about what would make them happy.

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Speaker 7: And you know, it's not like there's been this magic

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Speaker 7: bullet where everyone's suddenly happy now, but people are thinking

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Speaker 7: about that more maybe than they used to with all

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Speaker 7: that happened.

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Speaker 1: What were your big top line conclusions? What were the

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Speaker 1: things that leaped out at you in these answers that

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Speaker 1: the people.

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Speaker 8: Gave Some of the stuff that we found, you'd expect,

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Speaker 8: like ninety percent of these people own their home. We

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Speaker 8: didn't find very many renters. That didn't shock us. It

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Speaker 8: makes sense that these people, on paper should be feeling richer.

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Speaker 8: A home is often the thing that for most people.

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Speaker 8: You use debt to buy an asset that's going to appreciate.

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Speaker 8: That's how most regular people think about it. It's their

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Speaker 8: biggest purchase, it's the highest percentage of their net worth.

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Speaker 8: And ninety percent of the people in this survey were homeowners.

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Speaker 8: The other key thing I think not shocking is that

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Speaker 8: the people that said they feel rich or very rich

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Speaker 8: tend to have a lot stored away for retirement, which

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Speaker 8: is I think probably the number one thing most people

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Speaker 8: would identify as a thing that makes them worry when

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Speaker 8: they do have to stop working, will they have enough

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Speaker 8: to have a comfortable life. We were living way longer

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Speaker 8: these days, so I think housing and retirement were really

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Speaker 8: two of the big things that jumped out at us

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Speaker 8: in the results. The housing market is very, very tough.

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Speaker 8: I mean, mortgage rates right now are about seven percent,

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Speaker 8: and there's no inventory because a lot of people refinance

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Speaker 8: in the pandemic. You know, some very high percentage of

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Speaker 8: mortgages are under four percent, under three percent, And what's

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Speaker 8: happening in the housing market is that it's basically frozen.

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Speaker 8: The person who is paying two point seventy five they

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Speaker 8: don't want to move and take.

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Speaker 3: On a seven percent mortgage. So there's just no inventory.

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Speaker 8: And I think there's a growing number of people who

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Speaker 8: are let's say under thirty, who are renters, often cases

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Speaker 8: making good salaries in coastal cities, who are saying to themselves,

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Speaker 8: I don't think I can ever buy a home. That's

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Speaker 8: a fundamental shift in the US. I mean, home ownership

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Speaker 8: has been the path to wealth creation since forever, since

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Speaker 8: World War Two. That was how we built the middle

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Speaker 8: class in this country. And again, I think there's a

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Speaker 8: growing number of people under thirty or so who think

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Speaker 8: that they are shut off from that avenue. And it

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Speaker 8: raises fundamental questions about how we're going to think about

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Speaker 8: money and wealth in our society over the next twenty

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Speaker 8: or thirty years.

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Speaker 7: And it's all about, you know, young people thinking, you know,

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Speaker 7: maybe I don't need to go to college anymore, maybe

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Speaker 7: I do something different, Maybe I don't spend you know,

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Speaker 7: two decades of my life in this banking job. And

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Speaker 7: we are seeing that more and more with younger people,

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Speaker 7: and I think that does stem from just them looking

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Speaker 7: at one, this isn't possible for me, and two if

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Speaker 7: they're miserable, why would I follow that traditional path? And

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Speaker 7: that has the potential to really upend higher education and

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Speaker 7: traditional industries like banking and finance and have all these

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Speaker 7: implications for what our society looks like when those people

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Speaker 7: are of age to really be the movers and shakers.

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Speaker 1: Claire Craig, thanks so much for coming on the show,

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Speaker 1: Thank You, Thank You. For another perspective on why we

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Speaker 1: think about money the way we do. I sat down

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Speaker 1: with Michael Kraus. He's an associate professor of organizational behavior

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Speaker 1: at Yale University's School of Management, and he studies this

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Speaker 1: question for a living. Michael, we've been talking about this

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Speaker 1: survey are reporters conducted, and people who were objectively well off,

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Speaker 1: some of them still said they felt poor. Have you

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Speaker 1: seen that before? Do you know why people would feel

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Speaker 1: that way.

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Speaker 6: A lot of subjective feelings about how I'm doing economically

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Speaker 6: they have to do with comparisons. One of the comparisons

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Speaker 6: that can be happening is to you and your past self.

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Speaker 6: A lot of times it can be a reflection of

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Speaker 6: how I feel about how how much things cost these days,

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Speaker 6: a feeling about how much maybe people are doing better

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Speaker 6: than I am, and so I think both of those

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Speaker 6: processes are comparative and they're likely to play a role

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Speaker 6: in people feeling like, even though I have a lot

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Speaker 6: of money, I'm not doing as well as maybe I

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Speaker 6: was in the past, or maybe that person who lives

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Speaker 6: next door to me who I think is doing better

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Speaker 6: than me. People are thinking about wealth in terms of

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Speaker 6: things like paying for health care, having a nest egg

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Speaker 6: to afford college, maybe for their kids. So there's a

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Speaker 6: lot of ways that, like you make those calculations uniquely

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Speaker 6: for you that are likely to lead you to feel like, well,

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Speaker 6: the one hundred and seventy five a year that I'm

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Speaker 6: pulling in is not necessarily as much as I might

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Speaker 6: need if one thing goes wrong.

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Speaker 1: And you ran a study researching how people's subjective socio

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Speaker 1: economic status affects their own happiness, and what did you find?

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Speaker 6: What we did is it's called a meta analysis. What

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Speaker 6: it is is you just basically take anybody who studied

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Speaker 6: this topic of income, perceptions of income and status in society,

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Speaker 6: and how it relates to people's feelings of happiness and

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Speaker 6: well being. And so we looked across all of these studies,

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Speaker 6: across many countries, two million people in the total sample,

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Speaker 6: and what we find is subjective perceptions are more strongly

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Speaker 6: related to feelings of happiness and well being than you know,

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Speaker 6: how much you make a year. At least a part

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Speaker 6: of it is about comparisons to relevant others. A lot

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Speaker 6: of times when people make their ratings on their status

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Speaker 6: in societ, and you ask them, like, what were you

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Speaker 6: referring to when you were making these ratings. People are

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Speaker 6: referring to relevant comparisons, co workers, neighbors. They're saying they're

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Speaker 6: thinking about how people around them are doing, and they're

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Speaker 6: basing their own status on that kind of information. Often

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Speaker 6: in social psychology, you know, psychology in general, we're thinking

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Speaker 6: about how people do relative to us, and we can

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Speaker 6: be strategic about who we compare to. When we're thinking

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Speaker 6: about and trying to get information about, like do I

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Speaker 6: need to change my behavior? Do I need to try

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Speaker 6: to earn more money? Do I need to change jobs?

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Speaker 6: You're likely to compare upward, right, because you're looking for

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Speaker 6: information about how people who are doing better than you

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Speaker 6: are a fairing and what I need to change to

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Speaker 6: be maybe more similar to them so that I can

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Speaker 6: do better as well. The other piece, though, is about

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Speaker 6: past selves as well, right, So any kind of fluctuations

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Speaker 6: and how how you feel like you're doing relative to

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Speaker 6: maybe yesterday or last year, those are going to matter

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Speaker 6: as well in terms of subjective perception. So your status

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Speaker 6: can change as a function of if I feel like

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Speaker 6: my money's not going as far as it once was.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, how does wealth inequality affect how

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Speaker 1: we think about our own money? Michael, You've also researched

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Speaker 1: people's perception of wealth inequality when it comes to race,

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Speaker 1: and what did you find there.

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Speaker 6: This is a different set of studies that we did

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Speaker 6: using General Social Survey data, which is just a large

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Speaker 6: yearly panel survey of American attitudes. So we look at

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Speaker 6: that data and we look at changes in perceptions of

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Speaker 6: status bi racial groups. When you hold income constant. What

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Speaker 6: you find is that white people in the United States

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Speaker 6: since the seventies have a reduction in their perceived status

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Speaker 6: in society relative to racial minority groups at the same

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Speaker 6: income level. But that strikes us as a bit of

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Speaker 6: a misperception of status in American society. That this perception

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Speaker 6: that white Americans have lower status would be actually inconsistent

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Speaker 6: with the historical record of where folks stand in society,

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Speaker 6: And so there might be a role for education of

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Speaker 6: our racial history in not only getting people to not

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Speaker 6: have this misperception, but it might be a road to

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Speaker 6: greater happiness too. That people haven't really tapped that it

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Speaker 6: would affect happiness is perhaps unsurprising given how central racism

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Speaker 6: is to the history of the United States, but also

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Speaker 6: to politics.

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Speaker 1: Are we then finding that the perceptions of wealth by

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Speaker 1: people of in America are rising?

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Speaker 6: No, it's people of colors perceptions of their status is

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Speaker 6: pretty flat across from nineteen seventy to now. It is

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Speaker 6: white Americans perception their own status income match that is

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Speaker 6: declining over time.

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Speaker 1: What's the most surprising thing about this that you've found

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Speaker 1: in your research?

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Speaker 6: You know, I think it's in people's reactions to the

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Speaker 6: work that we've been doing on status and happiness. I

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Speaker 6: find it actually kind of surprising that people would come

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Speaker 6: to that research thinking that money doesn't matter as much

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Speaker 6: as it does. I think it's maybe surprising and might

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Speaker 6: be neat and interesting to think that the amount of

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Speaker 6: our resources our perceptions of status would matter less for

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Speaker 6: our happiness and well being. But you know, I think,

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Speaker 6: if anything, from all the work that we've been doing

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Speaker 6: and all the work that other people have been doing

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Speaker 6: that we've been surveying, it really seems that the effect

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Speaker 6: of income and status on our well being is robust

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Speaker 6: and consistent and is there across countries with different kinds

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Speaker 6: of socio political circumstances.

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Speaker 1: Michael Kross, thanks so much for talking with me.

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Speaker 3: Throw up bar