One way that being poor is better than being rich

Stress vs. leisure:

According to research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, quoted in an article in the Washington Post, “being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed.”

People who make less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those making more than $100,000 a year (I would call them affluent not wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure. “The richest people spent nearly twice as much time as the poorest people in leisure activitities that were structured and often stressful — shopping, child care and exercise.”

In short, stereotypes about the leisure class no longer hold true. “In reality,” Kahneman and his colleagues wrote in a paper they published in the journal Science, “they should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure.”