Life Expectancy Study: It's Not Just What You Make, It's Where You Live (npr.org) 87
An anonymous reader shares a report on NPR.org: Poor people who reside in expensive, well-educated cities such as San Francisco tend to live longer than low-income people in less affluent places, according to a study of more than a billion Social Security and tax records. The study, published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, bolsters what was already well-known -- the poor tend to have shorter lifespans than those with more money. But it also says that among low-income people, big disparities exist in life expectancy from place to place, said Raj Chetty, professor of economics at Stanford University. "There are some places where the poor are doing quite well, gaining just as much in terms of life span as the rich, but there are other places where they're actually going in the other direction, where the poor are living shorter lives today than they did in the past," Chetty said, in an interview with NPR.The New York Times' take on the same study: New York is a city with some of the worst income inequality in the country. But when it comes to inequality of life spans, it's one of the best. Impoverished New Yorkers tend to live far longer than their counterparts in other American cities, according to a detailed new research of Social Security and earnings records published Monday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. They still die sooner than their richer neighbors, but the city's life-expectancy gap was smaller in 2014 than nearly everywhere else, and it has shrunk since 2001 even as gaps grew nationwide. That trend may appear surprising. New York is one of the country's most unequal and expensive cities, where the poor struggle to find affordable housing and the money and time to take care of themselves.
inequality: a false measuring stick (Score:1, Insightful)
I refuse to take seriously any topic where inequality of life circumstances is held up as some sort of moral evil. Imposed equality needs to be limited to very few domains, like equality -before the law-, to the extent even that is possible. But to use inequality as a cudgel against different people living longer or better than others ... hell no, go away. Free people aren't equal. Equal people aren't free.
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There's absolutely no mention of "moral evil" in either articles. It's simply an observation that can help us determine why that is and to try to keep the public healthy. There's no, "Income inequality causes different health outcomes, QED communism"
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Let me highlight one in the second TFA's excerpt:
Words like "best" / "worst" are a moral evaluation. They could have used "highest", "lowest" instead, if they didn't want to drag normative morality into it.
To the NYT's credit, the punchline of their story backs away from inequality as the evil:
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Words like "best" / "worst" are a moral evaluation.
So article phrases like "get the best mileage out of your car" or "this has proven be by far the worst CPU in out test" are actually hidden moral appeals? I had no idea! :-p
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Actually true (Score:3)
Yes, "worst fuel economy" strongly implies something beyond "lowest mileage".
True. "Worst" is a charged word with an implicit normative value judgment.
"lowest" is a word of measurement that denotes being at one end of a measurement. There is not necessarily normative judgment implicit in it, although people may hear a normative judgment in it depending on what it is measuring.
If I note you are the child with the worst height, I am being cruel; if I note you are the child who is shortest, I am being factual.
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Best and worst imply a subjective judgement. It is you who is reading a morality-based judgement into it.
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Inequality vs freedom is a bathtub curve. If a place is forcibly equal or too unequal, it's a tyranny (North Korea, oligarch states). There is a sweet-spot for inequality that does not create social imbalances. With all the crap going on in NYC, we can be sure to say that it's not in that sweet spot.
Re:inequality: a false measuring stick (Score:4)
RTFA. No such thing as "moral evil". It's still a valid and interesting scientific subject.
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RTFA. No such thing as "moral evil".
There are /.ers who consider RTFA to be a "moral evil".
Sometimes, it seems to me that folks don't even bother to read the summary . . . or even read the post that they are responding to.
You must be nude here.
So is yours! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice rant for mod points, but that's where the niceties end.
Free people aren't equal. Equal people aren't free.
I have no clue what planet or country you live in, but here in the USofA we are not free. You can't own a house and land, you pay rent to the Government and a Bank. You can't own a business, in fact good luck with all the regulations and paperwork required even if you are doing 1 person contracting. Work in the city? Well, some rich person is going to make sure that the majority of your income goes to them in rent. Don't like it, don't live in
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"We have no equality because people like you not only ignore the morality of certain people who abuse the system"
We all agree that abusing the system (breaking the law, bribing lawmakers) is wrong.
"but attempt to claim that does not happen or have influence if it does."
I don't know how much it happens or how much influence it has. I suspect this is not the place to convince us.
But I must disagree with your "We don't have equality because ..." bit. Putative abuse of the laws is not why we don't have "equali
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inequalities exist. Being human has nothing to do with being forced to do things, because others want to spend your money for you. Empathy is emotion and just like acting when I am angry, I don't necessarily have to act when I am being Empathetic. Sometimes the BEST thing to do for a person is nothing. Which goes against just about every liberal tenant there is.
Yes, life is a struggle, and we all need help at some time or another. And sometimes, when we want help, we shouldn't be getting any, because the st
WTF? (Score:2)
It is really our belief that if something is not illegal it must be morally good, or that if it is illegal it must be morally bad? That is what you just said in a round about way twice.
*waiting*
Proving my point (Score:3)
Preempting my *waiting* because your last paragraph is grating. It simply states exactly what I said was the problem. In your general view, unequal is good. You said it twice, so you must believe it to be true. It is completely unfair, so is unfair also good? Should we codify this unfairness so that certain people always have everything they want and never need to work, and other people perpetually work for no gain?
The summary of Socrates's story of the Artisan is this: When the artisan makes a master
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"In your general view, unequal is good."
Let me clarify - the freedom to be unequal is good.
"[inequality] is completely unfair, so is unfair also good?"
What do you mean by "unfair", other than a sneaky synonym of "unequal", thus begging the question?
"Sorry, but there is nothing a politician can say in an hour worth $250,000,000.00 US"
Your opinion is irrelevant - those paying disagree.
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I cannot agree with this if this is used as an excuse to have people in poverty. If someone is okay to have someone in poverty because, for instance if they don't have work, then it shows that you don't think that someone is worth anything except for what you can get out of them. A rapist doesn't give any value to their victims lives, just what they can get from them. Which puts one who doesn't care about the economic welfare of other people in the same boat as rapists. This includes people saying 'it i
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"if this is used as an excuse to have people in poverty. "
It's not (regardless of "have" means). It's that comparing rich-vs-poor is not relevant to the task of helping the poor get out of poverty. If you want to help X, help them because of the value of X, not because there exists some Y who is >>> X.
Re:So is yours! (Score:4)
If you want to help X, help them because of the value of X, not because there exists some Y who is >>> X.
I agree with that.
However inequality in practice has been called the most important problem.
Here is a quote from wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
2013 Economics Nobel prize winner Robert J. Shiller said that rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere is the most important problem.[108] Increasing inequality harms economic growth.[109] High and persistent unemployment, in which inequality increases, has a negative effect on subsequent long-run economic growth. Unemployment can harm growth not only because it is a waste of resources, but also because it generates redistributive pressures and subsequent distortions, drives people to poverty, constrains liquidity limiting labor mobility, and erodes self-esteem promoting social dislocation, unrest and conflict. Policies aiming at controlling unemployment and in particular at reducing its inequality-associated effects support economic growth.[6]
The effects of inequality are massive and effect almost every facet of life. It would be hard to find a bigger problem than inequality.
The other part of my post was due to comments I have seen regularly that state that 'If someone doesn't have a job then I shouldn't have to give a penny to them. They can die because of evolution, they are unfit to live' type posts. Your post seemed like one of those because saying inequality is good is a prerequisite for such views and it may be a veiled attempt at excusing terrible conditions for the poor. Those comments may well not be aimed at your previous post, unless you are actually espousing those views. Not saying you are.
If anyone has any problems with a Wikipedia link, then I would like to remind them that the article has plenty of references which are a click away.
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"However inequality in practice has been called the most important problem."
And it has been called a giant red herring too. Right here.
"The effects of inequality are massive and effect almost every facet of life. It would be hard to find a bigger problem than inequality."
See, that's all 100% wrong. The problem is not inequality (Y minus X). The problem is that X is too small (for many people's taste). Now one can dream up all kinds of reasons why X may be too small. But to blame Y automatically ... "ha
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TBH I am not sure what planet any of your observations are from. We spend hundreds of billions on poor as it is. Are some still falling through the narrowing cracks? Fine. Use your freedom of speech to agitate for more.
You also regurgitate 1984 Newspeak phrases like the freedom to borrow from a bank (or BE a bank and offer loans) is not freedom. Also, concerns over the rich buying influence wouldn't be as much of an issue if almost unrestricted economic control weren't an assumed power of Congress.
You
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You imply that the above post's author is advocating more government when they are not. Moveover you make simplistic arguements like the only way to combat poverty is by spending more money. Please reread and notice that roughly half the things they bring up are due to government.
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TBH I am not sure what planet any of your observations are from. We spend hundreds of billions on poor as it is. Are some still falling through the narrowing cracks? Fine. Use your freedom of speech to agitate for more.
Maybe you should stop doing the drugs, because you have a real problem with false dichotomy. Does the money we spend on the poor prevent people from using their money to buy political influence for further gains? I never said we don't spend money, I said we don't have freedom and we don't have equality.
You also regurgitate 1984 Newspeak phrases like the freedom to borrow from a bank (or BE a bank and offer loans) is not freedom. Also, concerns over the rich buying influence wouldn't be as much of an issue if almost unrestricted economic control weren't an assumed power of Congress.
I never said anything about loans, I said the game was rigged and most people could never own a home or land. Maybe those hallucinogens are impacting your ability to read as well as compare.
You introduce that power to government, you (re)introduce many of the problems the founding fathers were trying to nullify -- the divine right of kings to muck about with (other peoples') wealth for their own benefit.
Does it surprise you all the shits you hate through history make a beeline to try to control it? If so, why?
I never did any
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You can drive your car on your road all you want and never pay the state a penny on the car after the original purchase taxes. Drive on the government's roads, you pay for it.
Property taxes are excessive because they fund much more than the proper functions to protect your property. That does not mean that some low level of taxation is not proper, nor that if you refuse to pay for services rendered the government shouldn't seize whatever is necessary to cover the value you've stolen.
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You make payments on a loan to a bank. Not everyone does.
As for the government, you appear to be confusing ownership with sovereignity. Sovereigns have supreme authority, while owners have a generally recognized claim which society and the legal system recognizes to an object, creative work, idea,
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I have no clue what planet or country you live in, but here in the USofA we are not free. You can't own a house and land, you pay rent to the Government and a Bank. And even if you "buy" a house in the sticks you are only renting the land from the Government. Have doubts, refuse to make your tax payments and call me so I can laugh at you.
How would you define free? Being on a island in the middle of nowhere with no government? I'm pretty darn free. I don't pay rent to the government or the banks for the land I own. I do pay a small amount of property taxes but it's less than what it would cost to send my kids to a private school and a heck of a lot less than what it would cost to hire someone to protect my land from marauders. If I wanted to grow my own food and live off the land I could and by having no income I would be eligible for e
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Nobody is saying we should impose equality on everybody, (straw-man anyone?) But there is a spectrum here, ranging from everybody is equal, no matter how skilled or lazy they are, right through to the rich get to set the laws, put their money in tax havens, get all the resources, and the poor are just left to die.
I am personally for a system, of fairness, where there is a reasonable chance if you work hard, you have a chance to succeed. Of course it can't be totally fair because that would be impossible to
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As for health their have been studies that show the more equal a society is (probably to a point) the healthier, happier they are, even the rich are sightly better off.
But this study demonstrates otherwise. They took NYC as an example of great income disparity with a resulting smaller (and shrinking) gap in life expectancy disparity. I read that as; It's not income, it's something else.
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rich get to set the laws, put their money in tax havens, get all the resources, and the poor are just left to die.
Because we have so many dead poor people these days!
I am personally for a system, of fairness, where there is a reasonable chance if you work hard, you have a chance to succeed.
We call that opportunity. You have a right to have the opportunity to succeed, but equality requires a equal opportunity to fail. Which is where you have problems. If you remove the failure part, you're necessarily affecting the ability to succeed. Which is where people like you fail to grasp to cause / effect of your ideals.
You can't have the chance to be an Olympic Athlete in a world that has only participation trophies.
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that selfishness is evil
I can tolerate some wealth redistribution. But what are we expected to do about life expectancy? Take some wealthy people out into the town square and shoot them?
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Well for starters, nothing in these articles is suggesting "impossed equality". I dont see any mention of the government seizing large flats in New Yrok and particianing them up and giving them to poor people or some other nonsnse.
Furthermore, equality versus inequality can most certainly be put in good / bad catagories. Are the conditions in some third world nations where there are a small number of wealthy while the vast majority of the rest of the population lives in poverty "good"? No and the vast major
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You define "free" by the standard of laissez-faire capitalism, that people who live in a system closer to this ideal are more "free." Even if they work skilled jobs and can hardly support themselves while a small ownership class reaps ludicrous, astronomical wealth for sitting around and owning things. That's certainly an evil outcome IMO.
This system is a lot like a paperclip maximizer. [lesswrong.com] I found an interesting discussion on that very analogy here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/i... [ycombinator.com]
No wonder here (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wealth pays for good health care system with good hospitals and trained physicians.
Not to mention that doctors (and most people) prefer to work in safe neighborhoods.
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Studies in the blind spots of academia (Score:5, Interesting)
Allow me to summarize their findings. Poor people are more likely to be obese and obese people have a shorter life expectancy*.
*Except in dense urban areas where walking and public transit are more common than driving and parking.
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They adjust for obesity and sedentary lifestyle. The same fatass couch potato lives longer in NY than elsewhere.
And a lot are getting sidetracked on disparity or unequal or wealth or whatever, when the point of this story was it cuts across economic lines and seems location-based.
Now we do know the more a doctor performs a procedure, the statistically better their outcomes. So maybe NY doctors are extra skilled at treating diabetes or doing angioplasty, from sheer numbers.
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Close, but you over-generalized.
I didn't see anything in the study that indicates walking or public transportation has anything to do with it
But they do mention that access to healthcare is important (Who knew?). If you've ever lived in a rural location you would know that the doctors and hospitals are (at best) second-rate. Think bottom of the class from Caribbean med schools.
They also use Tampa, Florida as an example of someplace with a big disparity. No kidding; Tampa is flooded with retirees who have al
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If you've ever lived in a rural location you would know that the doctors and hospitals are (at best) second-rate
I haven't had any problems with the skill levels of the doctors - just the distances to them. Growing up I lived about 20-miles from the nearest town (and I don't say "town" to mean a large city - I mean for 20 miles it was mostly just forested undeveloped land). My grandparents lived about a quarter mile away. Definitely poor. They had a few acres of land but mostly used that to subsistence farm. They both got a little cash from social security but other than that my grandfather just had about 3 acres
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It's been suggested that results from being poor in the first place [washingtonpost.com]. It's not a level playing field. Fantastic if you get a good start, not so good if you don't; and that is completely beyond your control.
ok...soo...the grant $ goes to: (Score:2)
it's the deep-fried mac'n'cheese (Score:2)
But then Yankees will never experience the bliss of injecting lard and sugar directly into their aortas, so overall it's a wash.
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Might as well blame it on the South being the Krispy Kreme belt. ...
But then Yankees will never experience
Its called Dunkin Donuts.
It came way before your cheap knock-off.
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Its called Dunkin Donuts.
It came way before your cheap knock-off.
Speaking as a transplanted Yankee (NYC) living deep in the heart of the Krispy Kreme belt (Knoxville, TN) and believes that Dunkin is the ultimate expression of the donut (unless the sign is on at Krispy Kreme... when those things are warm and the sugar is still semi-liquid, they are like crack. Once they warm up, I find them fairly inedible) I have to point out that the Krispy Kreme is, in fact, about 15 years older than the Dunkin Donut. :(
Public transit helps the poor (Score:5, Insightful)
When there is no public transit, the threshold is a few hundred dollars. One fender bender, one blown tire or busted alternator is all it takes for a poor person without public transit to fall off. Can't get to work, can't earn the money needed to fix the car. They would depend on the kindness and help from near and dear to get past that kind of emergency.
Most poor people would rather have a dependable transportation system to their work place and affordable child care than dole. Poverty rates can be halved just by providing/subsidizing transportation and child care.
Urban area unemployment rate is over 33% approaches even 50%. That means even in those blighted areas 50 to 66% of the people actually go to work. Somehow, despite all the hardships, despite seeing the drug dealers and pimps rolling in dough, people line up to work for minimum wage in a burger joint. Shows how much poverty could be alleviated if we make it possible for them to work.
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Urban area unemployment rate is over 33% approaches even 50%.
Let me guess... you believe that 92 million Americans are still unemployed?
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Would you care to demonstrate why that's incorrect? I think it includes retired people, but as far as I can tell it's factual.
The 92 million figure includes the elderly and students. The earliest mention of the 92 million figure was January 2014. So no changes in that figure for the last two years? Unemployment not getting better or worse?
It's propaganda at best.
So is the 92 million figure straight out of the right wing echo chamber. A false fact repeated a million times doesn't make it true.
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It's generally more interesting talking about how many are currently looking for jobs.
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retired people and children are not unemployed.
you're only unemployed if you want to work, eligible to work, and not working.
children are too young to work.
the retired are done working.
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Egads, is that what you think? The popularly quoted government statistic for unemployment rate only considers people who (claim they) are actively looking for a job.
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bwhahahahahahaha.
bless your heart.
Yeah right (Score:3)
"according to a study of more than a billion Social Security and tax records"
"That trend may appear surprising. New York is one of the country's most unequal and expensive cities, where the poor struggle to find affordable housing and the money and time to take care of themselves."
That wouldn't get most of the poor in NYC. The poor who fail in that struggle neither pay social security nor taxes.
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There are some places like in California where being poor or even homeless is a life choice and the people aren't self-selecting for mental illness or other tragedies that force poverty or homelessness on them. This would raise the life expectancy of the whole group.
Nonsense. Maybe being homeless is a choice, considering even more undesirable alternatives, but people don't want to be poor. They may be stupid or have some "voluntary" behavior that causes them to be poor, but that's not the same as choosing to be so. (I don't understand your self-selecting clause, btw.)
No kidding (Score:3)
So... (Score:2)
So trickle down DOES work!
Rural white people (Score:2)
A recent study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." also revealed that the death rate of middle-aged, non-Hispanic white people is increasing while all other groups continue to see a decline in mortality rates.
http://www.pnas.org/content/11... [pnas.org]
Rural white people don't need to be lectured by elitist liberal academics and BLM activists about how "privileged" they are.
2x loser (Score:1)