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

[question everything]

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561

We really don't need to read this lengthy study from Standford, MIT and Harvard depts. of economics, and the office of tax analysis from the US Treasury dept. to instinctively know this.

Conclusions and Relevance: In the United States between 2001 and 2014, higher income was associated with greater longevity, and differences in life expectancy across income groups increased over time. However, the association between life expectancy and income varied substantially across areas; differences in longevity across income groups decreased in some areas and increased in others. The differences in life expectancy were correlated with health behaviors and local area characteristics.

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I found this paragraph of interest:

The strongest pattern in the data was that low-income individuals tend to live longest (and have more healthful behaviors) in cities with highly educated populations, high incomes, and high levels of government expenditures, such as New York, New York, and San Francisco, California. In these cities, life expectancy for individuals in the bottom 5% of the income distribution was approximately 80 years. In contrast, in cities such as Gary, Indiana, and Detroit, Michigan, the expected age at death for individuals in the bottom 5% of the income distribution was approximately 75 years. Low-income individuals living in cities with highly educated populations and high incomes also experienced the largest gains in life expectancy during the 2000s.


And... of course, high tax. For those of us who do live in high tax states, the reward is for life.

[thereismore]

1. Roughly speaking, the difference between 5 and 95 income percentile equals 10 years of life. nt

[Human101948]

2. If you are at the top end, you can get one of those "caretakers" to push your wheelchair...

and spoon feed you. If you are on the bottom end you are on your own.