South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Robert Skidelsky explains why “happiness is equality.”

But another finding has also started to influence the current debate on growth: poor people within a country are less happy than rich people. In other words, above a low level of sufficiency, peoples’ happiness levels are determined much less by their absolute income than by their income relative to some reference group. We constantly compare our lot with that of others, feeling either superior or inferior, whatever our income level; well-being depends more on how the fruits of growth are distributed than on their absolute amount.
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Put another way, what matters for life satisfaction is the growth not of mean income but of median income – the income of the typical person….