It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed.

The quip argues that happiness is not a straightforward consequence of economic condition. By stating that both poverty and wealth “have…failed,” Hubbard treats them like competing remedies that have been tried and found ineffective, implying that the true causes of happiness lie elsewhere—perhaps in character, relationships, purpose, or temperament. The humor comes from the mock-empirical phrasing (“hard to tell what does bring happiness”) and the balanced antithesis of poverty versus wealth, which undercuts the common assumption that changing one’s financial state will solve the problem of contentment. It is a compact critique of materialism and of romanticizing either hardship or prosperity.