LOS ANGELES — Scientists may have discovered the secret to
avoiding the fiscal cliff: Happiness. Regardless of whether
money can buy happiness, being happy may actually make you more
money down the road, new research finds. People who express more
positive emotions as teenagers and greater life satisfaction as
young adults tend to have higher incomes by the time they’re 29,
according to a study published Monday by the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. The difference was so great that
when measuring life satisfaction on a 5-point scale, a 1-point
jump at age 22 made a $2,000 difference in income down the line.
Between the gloomiest and the happiest brackets, that amounts to
an $8,000 earnings swing. Drawing on data from the federally
funded Add Health survey of teenagers, the researchers examined
the profiles of more than 10,000 Americans at ages 16, 18 and 22
as well as their annual incomes at 29. They controlled for a
number of factors known to contribute to financial success,
including educat