New study shows rich, poor have huge mortality gap in U.S.

Poverty in the U.S. is often associated with deprivation, in areas including housing, employment, and education. Now a study co-authored by two MIT researchers has shown, in unprecedented geographic detail, another stark reality: Poor people live shorter lives, too. More precisely, the study shows that in the U.S., the richest 1 percent of men lives 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest 1 percent of men, while among women in those wealth percentiles, the difference is 10.1 years on average.

This eye-opening gap is also growing rapidly: Over roughly the last 15 years, life expectancy increased by 2.34 years for men and 2.91 years for women who are among the top 5 percent of income earners in America, but by just 0.32 and 0.04 years for men and women in the bottom 5 percent of the income tables.

“When we think about income inequality in the United States, we think that low-income Americans can’t afford to purchase the same homes, live in the same neighborhoods, and buy the same goods and services as higher-income Americans,” says Michael Stepner, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Economics. “But the fact that they can on average expect to have 10 or 15 fewer years of life really demonstrates the level of inequality we’ve had in the United States.”

Wow. I used to work in downtown Denver and I remember the regulars.

I remember the guy who would sell pencils at the corner of 17th and Broadway. I read that he was very well off.

I always wondered how a person could live that way and then I read about the guy selling pencils. Not all were like him. I remember most had mental issues.

I noted major differences in life choices between the wealthy and the poor. Wonder if that might be a factor?

Duh? Maybe? Perhaps?

You dear lady have the winning post on this thread.

ps I grew up poor and retired in the hated top 10%. I made wise choices in education, work, spending and investments.

There’s also a lot tied to the lack of self control. The person who doesn’t eat to excess, drink to excess, never uses drugs, doesn’t have sex with anyone who is willing on a whim, doesn’t give in to temptations for dangerous dares - lives longer on average than the person who does all of these things. And the person with poor impulse control will have trouble not getting fired from work, having illegitimate children, staying out of jail for assault, burning money on lottery tickets and frittering it on impulse buys. So the correlation is poor impulse control / self control to both wealth and health.

Done most of the above in my insane years. Cleaned up my act a little bit and became a Geologist, later really cleaned up my act and became a pharmacist.

I still fly gliders at the limits of their structural specs. That may get me one day and I pull a wing off. I am 68 so what the hell and my wife will be rich. It has been a damn good run that most men can only dream about and Norway was insane beyond comprehension. It was dancing on the razors edge barefoot. One must be careful or insane. I was not careful.

Dope is a minor vice compared to dancing on the razors edge. Dope dulls ones senses, dancing on the razor is intense. It leaves you fulfilled, elated, calm, relaxed, assured, and at the same time scared, or perhaps dead. Dope can not even compare.

I misread the headline as huge *morality* gap.

I think there's truth to that as well.

If you keep making stupid decisions and damage yourself with your vices, and hurt other people, I'd say yes there is a *morality* problem that can lead to an earlier death.

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