VOX, Jan 9, 2018: What the dip in US life expectancy is really about: inequality
In 1980, the richest cohort of middle-aged American men could expect to live until about 83 and the poorest, to 76. By 2010, the richest American males had gained six years in life expectancy, living to 89 on average, while life expectancy for the poorest men hadn’t improved.
“Because we have widening income inequality and there’s a bigger gap between haves and have-nots,” said Steven Woolf, a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University who has been researching income and mortality. “We are seeing a bigger divide in mortality.”
Tax reform and other Trump-era policies are expected to make the gap worse.
