Must-read: Jim Zarroli: Raj Chetty et al.’s Life Expectancy Study: It’s Not Just What You Make, It’s Where You Live
Must-Read: : Life Expectancy Study: It’s Not Just What You Make, It’s Where You Live: “Poor people who reside in expensive, well-educated cities such as San Francisco…
…tend to live longer than low-income people in less affluent places, according to a study of more than a billion Social Security and tax records…. The poor tend to have shorter lifespans…. But it also says that among low-income people, big disparities exist in life expectancy from place to place, said Raj Chetty, professor of economics at Stanford University. ‘There are some places where the poor are doing quite well, gaining just as much in terms of life span as the rich, but there are other places where they’re actually going in the other direction, where the poor are living shorter lives today than they did in the past,’ Chetty said…. Low-income people in Birmingham, Ala., live about as long as the rich, but in Tampa, Fla., the poor have actually lost ground…. ‘Men in the top 1 percent distribution level live about 15 years longer than men in the bottom 1 percent on the income distribution in the United States…. Men in the bottom 1 percent have life expectancy comparable to the average life expectancy in Pakistan or Sudan.’
Since 2001, life-expectancy has increased by 2.3 years for the wealthiest 5 percent of American men and by nearly 3 percent for similarly-situated women. Meanwhile, life expectancy has increased barely at all for the poorest 5 percent…. What accounts for the disparity isn’t clear, Chetty says. It may be that some cities such as San Francisco may be better at promoting healthier lifestyles, with smoking bans, for example, or perhaps people tend to adopt healthier habits if they live in a place where everyone else is doing it, he says. The study suggests that the relationship between life expectancy and income is not iron-clad, and changes at the local level can make a big difference. ‘What our study shows is that thinking about these issues of inequality and health and life expectancy at a local level is very fruitful, and thinking about policies that change health behaviors at a local level is likely to be important,’ he says…
: The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014