if the figure is showing a subset of the two (i.e. only observations from people who answered both questions) then the z-score means across income levels will be slightly different, depending on who is excluded.
The author (who is an academic) agrees this is a bit weird, and notes “small-n noisiness at high incomes”.
So overall, I see the result as plausible but not super robust. Though note that in alignment with Kahneman/Deaton, Life Satisfaction does continue to increase even as Experienced Wellbeing dips.
Rohin, I thought this was super weird too. Did a bit more digging and found this blog post: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2021/01/26/income-and-happiness/
The author (who is an academic) agrees this is a bit weird, and notes “small-n noisiness at high incomes”.
So overall, I see the result as plausible but not super robust. Though note that in alignment with Kahneman/Deaton, Life Satisfaction does continue to increase even as Experienced Wellbeing dips.
Nice find, thanks!
(For others: note that the linked blog post also considers things like “maybe they just uploaded the wrong data” to be a plausible explanation.)