Rich people live longer than poor people. No big news there — we’ve known that health tracks wealth for quite some time now.
But here’s what we haven’t known: The life-expectancy gap between rich and poor in the United States is actually accelerating.
Since 2001, American men among the nation’s most affluent 5 percent have seen their lifespans increase by more than two years. American women in that bracket have registered an almost three-year extension to their life expectancy.
Meanwhile, the poorest five percent of Americans have seen essentially no gains at all.
Now a three-year gain in average lifespan might not, at first glance, seem earth-shakingly significant. But consider this: If doctors could by some miracle suddenly cure all cancer, federal health officials tell us, the average overall American life expectancy would increase by just three years.
In other words, as MIT’s Michael Stepner puts it, the changes in life expectancy we’ve witnessed over the last 15 years rank as “the equivalent of the richest Americans winning the war on cancer.”