This comes as no surprise: A national survey found that individuals don't actually have to be smart to be rich. In fact, people with below-average IQ test scores can be just as wealthy as brainiacs. According to the study, it's more about attitude than smarts.
The study's author Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research, says that it's up to each person to have a positive attitude and want to save up money and build up his or her wealth, and each and every one of us can do it regardless of our IQ.
Indeed, intelligence positively affects income as people with higher IQ tend to have higher education leading to higher paying careers. Basically, individuals with higher IQ scores earned higher incomes with each additional IQ point associated with an income boost of $202 to $616 each year.
But, the higher income didn't make them more wealthy as IQ score had no impact on wealth. In fact, highly intelligent people actually have financial difficulties, maxing out credit cards and missing bill payments, making them less wealthy. The lowest financial distress was found around the average IQ score.
You don't have to be smart to be rich
Posted Apr 25th 2007 5:55PM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Other issues, Personal finance
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-25-2007 @ 6:19PM
Lisa said...
Well, Duh! (I just had to type that...). Amassing a small fortune (or a large one) depends on more than just brains. It's also highly dependent on timing, and I don't mean just market timing. It's dependent on having the right amount of money available at the right time and investing in the right thing. As for the right time, the right thing, and the right amount of money, most of that only becomes evident in hindsight.
If we could predict the future, that would be useful. Brains do not confer clairvoyance.
4-26-2007 @ 10:37AM
Warren said...
It's behavior more than anything else. You don't need to be in the right time/place/anything - you simply need to choose good investments and contribute to them every month, preferably in some sort of automated fashion.
Wait 20 years, enjoy your money.