Loewenstein:
I don't see how anybody could study happiness and not find himself leaning left politically; the data make it all too clear that boosting the living standards of those already comfortable, such as through lower taxes, does little to improve their levels of well-being, whereas raising the living standards of the impoverished makes an enormous difference.

Seems like Professor Loewenstein hasn't taught any undergraduate economics classes for quite a long time... otherwise he would be perfectly aware of the fact that...

...inequality of wealth and incomes is an essential feature of the market economy. <> If laws had prevented [the millionaires] from getting rich, the average American household would have to forgo many of the gadgets and facilities that are today its normal equipment. This country enjoys the highest standard of living ever known in history because for several generations no attempts were made toward "equalization" and "redistribution." Inequality of wealth and incomes is the cause of the masses' well-being, not the cause of anybody's distress. Where there is a "lower degree of inequality," there is necessarily a lower standard of living of the masses (Ludwig von Mises, Ideas on Liberty, Inequality of Wealth and Incomes)

The ensuing rise in the masses’ standard of living is miraculous when compared with the conditions of ages gone by. In those merry old days even the wealthiest people led an existence which must be called straitened when compared with the average standard of the American or Australian worker of our age. Capitalism, says Marx, unthinkingly repeating the fables of the eulogists of the Middle Ages, has an inevitable tendency to impoverish the workers more and more. The truth is that capitalism has poured a horn of plenty upon the masses of wage earners who frequently did all they could to sabotage the adoption of those innovations which render their life more agreeable. How uneasy an American worker would be if he were forced to live in the style of a medieval lord and to miss the plumbing facilities and the other gadgets he simply takes for granted!* (Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, fourth revised edition, p. 116)

See also Bryan Caplan's fascinating response to what he calls "Loewenstein's challenge."

*Since this is actually my favorite passage in the text I also have the original** version at hand:

Da die kapitalistische Produktion auch die Produktivität der Arbeit in gewaltigem Maße gesteigert hat, führte das zu einer Hebung der materiellen Lage der Lohnarbeiter, die man als märchenhaft bezeichnen muss, wenn man sie mit dem Lebensstandard der Arbeiter vergangener Zeiten vergleicht. Die Zeit die man als die vorkapitalistische oder als die Zeit vor der »industriellen Revolution« bezeichnet, hat auch dem, den man damals als reich oder als wohlhabend angesehen hat, nur ein Leben ermöglicht, das man heute ärmlich nennen muss, wenn man es mit dem Leben der Massen in den modernen Industriestaaten vergleicht. Der Kapitalismus hat den Arbeiter nicht nur nicht verelendet, wie die Geschichtsblindheit Marx's und der Marxisten romantischen Lobrednern der guten alten Zeit nachgeschrieben hat und wie gedankenlose Demagogen immer wieder in die Welt hinausschreien, er hat über die Massen ein Füllhorn von Gaben ausgeschüttet. Wie unglücklich würde sich ein moderner amerikanischer oder englischer Fabriksarbeiter fühlen, wenn man ihn in das Haus eines mittelalterlichen Herrn versetzen würde und ihm zumuten würde, so zu leben, wie jener gelebt hat. (Ludwig von Mises, Nationalökonomie)

**Nationalökonomie was published in 1940 but forgotten in the turmoil of World War II. This work was later expanded and translated into English as the 900-page Human Action (1949), his crowning achievement.