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Friday, August 18th, 2023

The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014

Author:     Raj Chetty, Michael Stepner, Sarah Abraham, Shelby Lin, Benjamin Scuderi, Nicholas Turner, Augustin Bergeron, and David Cutler
Source:     Stanford University
Publication Date:     18 August 2023 (used)
 Link: The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014
Stephan:  

First, let me say that I have been thinking about the relationship between wealth and health and longevity because I have had a number of older readers write me to tell me that they were not able to get the healthcare they needed because they couldn’t afford it and none of the doctors in their area would take Medicaid patients. Clearly, the miserable healthcare system in the United States is a significant factor. But how big is this difference? I could not find a general audience article that I felt correctly addressed these issues, so I am presenting here the best academic research study I could find. It is based on more than a billion reports on individuals. In American society how much money you have determines how long you live. Can that possibly be true, am I exaggerating? This is the most definitive study that has ever been carried out and this is what they found. “The richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while the richest American women live 10 years longer than the poorest women.” I think this is atrocious, and should be a matter of national shame.

How can we reduce socioeconomic disparities in health outcomes? Although it is well known
that there are significant differences in health and longevity between income groups, debate
remains about the magnitudes and determinants of these differences. We use new data from
1.4 billion anonymous earnings and mortality records to construct more precise estimates of
the relationship between income and life expectancy at the national level than was feasible in
prior work. We then construct new local area (county and metro area) estimates of life
expectancy by income group and identify factors that are associated with higher levels of life
expectancy for low-income individuals. Our study yields four sets of results.

Result 1: Large Gaps at the National Level
Higher income is associated with greater longevity throughout the income distribution (Figure
1). The richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while the richest
American women live 10 years longer than the poorest women. The poorest men in the U.S.
have life expectancies comparable to men in Sudan and Pakistan; the richest men in the U.S.
live longer than the average man in any country.
Importantly, these findings […]

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