From the life of the Buddha to A Christmas Carol, to, heck, even Aladdin, the idea that money can’t buy us happiness is pretty baked into most human cultures. Like so many “common sense” ideas, though, it seems like it’s dead wrong – at least, according to a new study from happiness researcher Matthew Killingsworth.

“Is there a point beyond which more money is no longer associated with greater happiness?” begins Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, in the paper (which is self-published and not peer-reviewed). “In recent research, I found that happiness rose steadily at least up through incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. But what happens beyond that – does happiness plateau, decline, or continue rising?”

Now, listen: we know that, despite what rich people tell us, money can buy you happiness. Living in poverty can make you three times as likely to have depression or anxiety; a sudden windfall, on the other hand, will improve your short-term happiness significantly. A regular salary is the jackpot, psychologically speaking: as research repeatedly bears out, a higher annual income correlates very strongly with overall happiness and well-being.

But at some point, you’ve probably heard, there’s a limit to the benefits brought by extra cash. Sure, being able to pay rent and buy food can account for a whole lot of your happiness levels, but once you reach that middle level in Maslow’s hierarchy, more money isn’t going to change much. Right? 

Not according to Killingsworth’s research. By comparing data from three groups – one comprising more than 33,000 people with any income of at least $10,000, and the other two surveying specifically extremely wealthy individuals with net worths in the millions – Killingsworth drew the unfortunate but not unexpected conclusion that, yes, Elon Musk is probably happier than you. By a lot.

Wealthy individuals are "substantially and statistically significantly happier than people earning over $500,000 [per year],” Killingsworth writes. “Moreover, the difference between wealthy and middle-income participants was nearly three times larger than the difference between the middle- and low-income participants, contrary to the idea that middle-income people are close to the peak of the money-happiness curve.”

“Finally, the absolute size of the difference in happiness between the richest and poorest people was large,” he continues. “The results suggest that the positive association between money and happiness continues far up the economic ladder, and that the magnitude of the differences can be substantial.”

While that may seem like depressing news to about 99 percent of the population, Killingsworth interprets the results in a more glass-half-full kind of way. 

“If happiness plateaued completely at a modest level of wealth or income, one might argue that this would simplify human life: Each person simply needs to get ‘enough’ and can then rationally shift all of their attention to things besides money,” he writes. 

But if that were the case, he points out, it would mean at least one of two things was going wrong: either people being unable, even in the highest echelons of wealth, to work out which things would make them happy – or those things failing to exist at all.

So it’s with a sense of relief that we should understand the confirmation that those richer than us are also much happier than us. But what could possibly explain this wealth-to-well-being correlation? 

Ha, stupid question, we know – but to be fair, the link is a little deeper than it may seem at first glance. The key isn’t that richer people can just buy more material goods, Killingsworth says – it’s more to do with the sense of security that a larger reservoir of money imparts.

“A greater feeling of control over life can explain about 75 percent of the association between money and happiness,” Killingsworth told The Guardian. “So I think a big part of what’s happening is that, when people have more money, they have more control over their lives. More freedom to live the life they want to live.”

And, to be fair, Killingsworth doesn’t suggest that only money is the key to happiness – or that it should be. “Ironically, part of the reason I’m so interested in happiness is because money alone – which we’re already pretty motivated to pursue – is just one small part of the overall equation for happiness,” he said. 

“Part of the reason I study happiness is to broaden our horizons beyond things like money.”

The study can be read on Killingsworth’s Happiness Science website.