Rich People Don’t Just Live Longer. They Also Get More Healthy Years. (Published 2020) (2024)

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Rich People Don’t Just Live Longer. They Also Get More Healthy Years. (Published 2020)? ›

Yes, indeed, it's good to be rich in old age. According to a new study, wealthy men and women don't only live longer, they also get eight to nine more healthy years after 50 than the poorest individuals in the United States and in England.

For those that were in the bottom 10%, life expectancy was just 76. This means that the richest Americans live 12 years longer than the poorest. Though both poor and rich people gained years of life since 2001, this 12 year difference was 1.4 years greater than in 2001.

Researchers have long known that the rich live longer than the poor. Evidence now suggests that the life expectancy gap is increasing, at least here the United States, which raises troubling questions about the fairness of current efforts to protect Social Security.

From the age of 50, the wealthiest men analyzed could expect another 31 healthy years of life – compared with the least well-off, who could only expect another 22 to 23 healthy years. For women, the wealthiest were projected to enjoy 33 more years of good health, compared with 24 for the poorest.

Middle-class Americans are healthier than those living in or near poverty, but they are less healthy than the upper class. Even wealthy Americans are less healthy than those Americans with higher incomes. Income is a driving force behind the striking health disparities that many minorities experience.

1 state for a long, healthy life: Hawaii. It's not surprising that Hawaii landed the number one spot as the best state for longevity. The Aloha State's life expectancy at birth is 80.7 years, which exceeds all other states and is three years longer than the national average.

The median age of the world's billionaires is now 67, data firm Altrata said in a new report. Forty-two percent are over the age of 70, and fewer than 10% are under the age of 50, according to the study.

The richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while the richest American women live 10 years longer than the poorest women. The gaps between the rich and the poor are growing rapidly over time.

People earning more money tend to be happier than those making less, but how money affects happiness varies by individual, which means there's an overlap in happiness among people at various income levels.

Why do rich people age slower? ›

The wealthy indulge in countless health trends of varying dubiousness, whether it's getting IV drips to reduce hangovers, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, implanting devices in the body to monitor health and live longer, even injecting themselves with young blood (a treatment called parabiosis, which Johnson is receiving).

Reconciling previously contradictory results, researchers from Penn and Princeton find a steady association between larger incomes and greater happiness for most people but a rise and plateau for an unhappy minority.

But “Rich Habits” author Tom Corley found from studying wealthy and poor individuals over a three-year period that many self-made millionaires grew up poor. “Ironically, according to my research, being poor actually endows you with certain advantages over the middle class and the wealthy,” he said.

The key to improving life expectancy in the United States is to improve the affordability and accessibility of our health care. That said, there is one group for whom American health care is excellent: the rich and powerful people who can afford it.

Health and wealth are both important, but health is often seen as more important. This is because without good health, it is difficult to enjoy the benefits of wealth. For example, a person who is rich but has poor health may not be able to enjoy their wealth due to illness and disability.

The short answer is “yes”, but the less-rich can take some comfort in research findings.

The richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while the richest American women live 10 years longer than the poorest women.

Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care? The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths.

The conditions that cause poor health, such as high levels of economic inequality and precarity, alongside limited safety net schemes and social support systems, are seen in every aspect of the lives of children and teenagers in the US.

Despite the growth between 2019 and 2022, the gap in dollar terms between younger and older families has grown, as can be seen in the animated graphic below. For example, in 2001, older families had $254,000 more wealth than younger families. By 2022, this gap had grown by $93,000 to $347,000.