The studies on happiness I've seen tend to conclude with "money doesn't buy happiness but lack of it does buy misery." The specific amount of lacking depends on the relative poverty line and in the US decreases as income approaches ~$75k/yr USD. But there's a lot of individual factors involved with happiness even if on average money has a measurable effect. Some people are really cheerful living below the poverty line but for most it's not a great place to be. Others make do with what they have and are content. Others use credit cards to inflate their income by $2k-$50k. There are also plenty of manically depressed millionaires, so cash alone is not sufficient for some. There are lots of blissful stupid people. I think the better question in these discussions is "what's the optimal happiness a human can achieve, and what can I achieve in the near future?" Since we can measure it I agree with you that money is an important factor, perhaps the dominating one for some individuals, but not the only one.