Study finds rich outlive poor by 15 years in US
Print Edition
THE richest Americans tend to outlive the poorest by almost 15 years, and that gap has grown since 2001, a major study of income and life expectancy revealed.
The findings, published on Sunday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, were based on more than 1 billion tax records from 1999 to 2014, as well as government mortality statistics.
The gap in life expectancy between the richest 1 percent and the poorest 1 percent was 14.6 years for men and 10.1 years for women, said the study led by Raj Chetty, an economics researcher at Stanford University.
“For example, men in the bottom 1 percent of the income distribution at the age of 40 years in the United States have life expectancies similar to the mean life expectancy for 40-year-old men in Sudan and Pakistan,” the study said. “There was a larger increase in life expectancy for higher income groups during the 2000s.”
The rich tended to live even longer — by more than two years for men and almost three years for women between 2001 and 2014. “Life expectancy did not change for individuals in the bottom 5 percent of the income distribution,” it said.
Researchers said factors found to affect life expectancy among the poor included smoking and obesity. Where people lived also made a difference.
The shortest life expectancies in the lowest income groups were seen in Nevada, Indiana and Oklahoma — 77.9 years — while the longest-lived among the poorest Americans were in New York, California and Vermont — 80.6 years.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
