The answer is that people's evaluations of their income situation are based on different considerations when the … of others undercuts the tendency for happiness to grow with an increase in one's own income, and happiness remains fairly … for income evaluations turns inward. "Financial hardship", the shortfall from one's own previous peak income, takes over …

Using panel data from the BHPS and its Understanding Society extension, we study life satisfaction (LS) and income over … from lowest to highest LS, though their average income was always higher. In spite of rapid income growth up to 2008 …/09, the less educated showed no rise in LS, while highly educated LS rose after the crash despite declining real income. In …