Unsettling News about Americans' Life Expectancy

Posted by D. Cupples  |  Newly released government research suggests that America's underprivileged people have lower life expectancies than America's better off.  Intuitively, of course, this makes sense: among other differences, people with less money tend to live in more dangerous neighborhoods, tend to work more physically taxing jobs, and tend to have less access to health care.

The New York Times reports:

"New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades....

"Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found “widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy” at birth and at every age level.

"He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.

"In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.

"After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that “life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000.” (NY Times via Memeorandum)

Thanks to the Finance blog for linking to his post.

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