Contrary to common expectation, intelligence does not always predict financial wellbeing. Even though smart people earn more, on average, it does not protect them from financial difficulty.

New research has found that people who score higher on intelligence tests end up with the same net worth as others when lifestyle factors are taken into account. And the study confirms that you don’t have to be smart to be wealthy.

The work reveals that while exceptionally smart individuals typically earn more, they are also more likely to spend to their credit card limit, compared with people of average intelligence.

Jay Zagorsky at Ohio State University in Columbus, US, analysed personal financial information collected from 7500 people between the ages of 33 to 41. Subjects provided details about their cash flow – including wages, welfare payments, alimony, and stock dividends – and their overall net worth. They also answered questions about whether they had “maxed out” any of their credit cards, missed bill payments or filed for bankruptcy.


All the participants had taken an intelligence exam known as the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) in 1980, an intelligence test used by the US military to assess recruits. The AFQT can be translated into IQ scores.

Squirreled wealth

On the surface, Zagorsky’s analysis confirms the findings of previous studies linking higher intelligence with higher income. “Each point increase in IQ test scores is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year,” he says. For example, a person with a score of 130 (in the top 2%, in terms of IQ) might earn about $12,000 more per year than someone with an average IQ score of about 100.

On the surface, people with higher intelligence scores also had greater wealth. The median net worth for people with an IQ of 120 was almost $128,000 compared with $58,000 for those with an IQ of 100.

But when Zagorsky controlled for other factors – such as divorce, years spent in school, type of work and inheritance – he found no link between IQ and net worth. In fact, people with a slightly above-average IQ of 105 , had an average net worth higher than those who were just a bit smarter, with a score of 110.

Cultural trump

People who had divorced once had about $9600 less wealth on average than their never-divorced counterparts. And those who smoked heavily had an $11,000 reduction in net worth. These external factors – rather than IQ – could explain the differences in wealth, Zagorsky suggests.

“IQ is clearly overwhelmed or trumped by the cultural imperative to consume,” says economist Richard Wolff at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, US. “People with higher IQs are acutely aware of all the goods and services that they can consume,” he says.

Wolff believes that smart people often have high expectations for what they deserve. “It’s a notion of ‘That’s what I’m entitled to as an American – that’s what I get for working hard.'” He notes that wages of American workers increased steadily, in real terms, from the 1820s to the 1970s, and people in the US expect their standard of living to constantly improve. However, the buying power of US wages has recently declined.

Journal reference: Intelligence (DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2007.02.003)