Poverty in the U.S. is often associated with deprivation, in areas including housing, employment, and education. Now a study co-authored by two MIT researchers has shown, in unprecedented geographic detail, another stark reality: Poor people live shorter lives, too. More precisely, the study shows that in the U.S., the richest 1 percent of men lives 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest 1 percent of men, while among women in those wealth percentiles, the difference is 10.1 years on average.
Michael Stepner and Sarah Abraham, PhD candidates in MIT’s Department of Economics, are among the co-authors of a newly published paper summarizing the study’s findings, and have played central roles in a three-year research project establishing the results. Read more at MIT News.