Why showing up still predicts happiness better than a fat paycheck

By Lena Vasquez, Community Features & Culture Editor

Religious attendance is on the decline in America. Large majorities continue to profess a belief in some kind of higher power, but the percentage who attend religious services on a weekly basis has fallen to 30 percent from 42 percent two decades ago.

We often hear the adage that “money doesn’t buy happiness,” but hustle culture has nonetheless exploded in popularity as more and more Americans embrace the rat race. However, a look at the data reveals perhaps the wisdom of our elders was correct. It’s not that money doesn’t make an impact on happiness. It does. But spirituality makes an even greater impact.

Here’s some numbers that just might make you rethink your priorities in life:

Poor Americans who attend church several times a week report being “very happy” at a higher rate (36 percent) than wealthy Americans who never go at all (26 percent).

These numbers come from the General Social Survey, a long-running, secular study out of the University of Chicago that has tracked American life for decades. Behavioral scientist William von Hippel laid it out in his 2018 book The Social Leap. He said he thought he’d made a coding error when he first saw the data. He hadn’t.

Look at the full picture:

Among poor Americans

• Never attend church: 19 percent very happy, 30 percent not too happy
• Attend several times a week: 36 percent very happy, 16 percent not too happy

Among wealthy Americans

• Never attend: 26 percent very happy, 13 percent not too happy
• Attend several times a week: 52 percent very happy, 7 percent not too happy

Money still helps. Nobody’s pretending otherwise. But the jump from “never” to “several times a week” is bigger than the jump from poor to rich. Von Hippel put it plainly: “Money buys a fair bit of happiness but connection gives you more bang for the buck.”

What church actually delivers, week after week, is meaning, support, and community. Names remembered. People who notice when you’re missing. A place where you’re not just another customer or another profile. In a time when loneliness is climbing and a lot of us are living behind screens and garage doors, that kind of steady human contact is getting rarer — and apparently more valuable than another zero in the bank.

What type of house of worship you want to attend is up to you. But showing up somewhere to discuss life’s greater mysteries, with the same people, on a regular schedule, objectively moves the needle on how people feel about their own lives. 

Sacramento has no shortage of churches, mosques, and temples. Some of them are half-empty on Sunday. Some are packed. The numbers suggest the difference might matter more than most of us have been willing to say.