The link between wealth and happiness

RE: Seeing the positive (and the negative) (Nov. 18)

I commend Paul Berton for wisely pointing out that although greater wealth doesn’t necessarily yield greater happiness, “it helps.” Many disagree, but, curiously, such bush league advisers often appear to be both reasonably well off and happy. I suspect their cheerfulness would wilt in the face of poverty. After all, meagre incomes are potent risk factors for compromised health, as The Spectator’s excellent Code Red project proved; I assume meagre incomes are also risk factors for drug and alcohol abuse, correctional admissions, and a “single (or married) with no children” status.

I humbly submit it’s very hard to be happy when addicted, when lonely or childless, when in trouble with the law, or when in broken health. Apparently our Liberal government agrees with Berton, given the recent decision to increase Ontario’s minimum hourly wage to $15 by January 2019, and to ensure all wage increases thereafter are tied to adjustments in the consumer price index.

I applaud Berton and the government for having the courage to acknowledge that there is, after all, a connection between wealth and happiness. It is a tragedy that the converse idea is so widely circulated: it makes too many poor people feel guilty for not being sufficiently spiritual and philosophical so as to be happy when disadvantaged. How sad. Richard Brokking, Campbellville