A national survey has shown that people with below-average intelligence can be just as wealthy as geniuses. In fact, people with high IQs may make higher salaries but often are disasters when it comes to managing their money.
"What the results really say is it doesn't matter whether you are born smart or you are not born smart, you can do financially okay," said the study's author Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Ohio State University.
The study also showed that highly intelligent people have financial difficulties, maxing out credit cards and missing bill payments. Zagorsky suggests that the financial troubles could be linked with an inability to save money.
Higher IQ, Higher Income
Participants with higher IQ scores tended to earn higher incomes, with each additional IQ point associated with an income boost of $202 to $616 each year. For example, a person with an IQ that's in the top 2 percent of society (130 points) would earn between $6,000 and $18,500 per year more than an individual with an average IQ of about 100 points.
The results showed a financial sweet spot of sorts that hovered around the average IQ score, for which people had the lowest financial distress.
Ultimately, a person's IQ had no impact on his or her wealth. So even though the "rocket scientists" earned on average higher incomes, they didn't have the savings to show it. And in fact, some higher-IQ people had more problems with maxing out credit cards and missing bill payments.
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