It’s
long been known that people with high earnings tend to live longer than low
earners. But this gap in life expectancy has widened into a gulf.
For
example, high-earning men born back in 1912 lived about eight months longer
than their counterparts in the bottom half of the income range. This longevity
gap increased to five years
for men who were born in 1941 and are now in their late 70s. The disparity for
women is similar, but not as extreme.
This
growing longevity gap has important implications for Social Security. The
program’s intent is to be progressive – more generous to lower-income
retirees. But the unequal life spans have significantly reduced that
progressivity, concludes Matt Rutledge in a new synopsis of
research in this area for the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors
this blog.
The
reason low-income workers are losing ground is that they don’t live as long, so
they don’t collect Social Security for as many years as high-income workers do.
A
study by the National Academy of Sciences, one of several demonstrating the
decline in the program’s progressivity, found that the value of lifetime Social Security
benefits, adjusted for inflation, increased nearly 30 percent for the
highest-income retirees born in 1960, compared with the top earners born 30
years earlier. But benefits either fell or stagnated over that time for
retirees on the lowest two tiers of the income scale – the people who rely far
more on Social Security.
Although
the reasons for the differences in life expectancy, depending on one’s income,
aren’t fully understood, various studies explain some of them. High-income
people are healthier and can afford better medical care, resulting in a lower
risk of dying of cancer or heart conditions.
Their smoking rate has also declined, reducing the incidence of related
conditions like lung cancer and heart disease.
Some
of the most interesting research has dug deeper into the impact of the quality
of the conditions people are living in. Low-income people, one study finds,
will live longer if they reside among high-income residents in areas with
higher housing costs and a college-educated population. Other influences are
behavioral. It’s healthy to see people around you who don’t smoke, aren’t
obese, and have good exercise practices. The larger tax base in higher-income
communities also provides more resources for government services.
In
any event, despite the growing income-longevity gap, the same body of research
finds that Social Security does continue to be progressive overall.
Click
here for the original article.