1% now lives more than 14 years longer than the rest of us

[Baobab]

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561

[elljay]

1. To clarify

It actually says that the top 1% lives 14 years longer than the bottom 1%. Not that this is acceptable, but it is hardly surprising news. What would be interesting is comparing this result with countries that have national healthcare.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. It also depends on where you are

The poor have a different life expectancy depending on where they are geographically placed

[My Good Babushka]

3. I predict

the comments are going to be along the lines of, "it's always this way", "we can't do anything about this", and "it's poor people's fault for their bad choices".

[packman]

4. Said the same thing several weeks ago - Interactive chart

Interesting article - begins wondering why English Dukes life expectancy suddenly began to increase in the 1700's. Prior to that time, rich or poor, everyone in England had the roughly the same time on earth. Then:

"...a groundswell of public-health measures and medical innovations that came online in the late 18th century meant the rich (but rarely the poor) could access, for example, inoculation against small pox, professional midwives to make childbirth less deadly, and citrus fruits that prevented scurvy.

By 1850 to 1874, the longevity gap had become quite stark: The rich lived 20 years longer than the general population.

This gap looks a lot like America's today, ..... chart on life expectancy for men (and further down, the chart on life expectancy for women) it's not just that the rich live longer than the poor in every county in every state of the nation — it's also that every step up the income ladder confers years of life. So again, there's a gradient linking income and life expectancy"



The article has a plug-in - give your sex, the state you live in, the county and it will extrapolate your life expectancy.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11501370/health-longevity-inequality-life-expectancy

So the rich now has another step up the ladder - better lifestyle, better living conditions, better this and that = more minutes on earth. Guess it was always this way.