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Letters | US must address rich-poor life expectancy gap

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A passenger on the subway in Washington on April 3. In America, the richest women live 10 years longer than the poorest women. For men, the gap is even wider. Photo: EPA-EFE
Letters
In the United States, the rich live much longer than the poor. At the age of 40 years, the gap between US individuals in the top and bottom 1 per cent of the income distribution is 15 years for men and 10 years for women. The top 20 per cent of Americans own nearly 90 per cent of the country’s wealth, by some estimates. The poverty rate by race or ethnicity is: white 9 per cent, black 22 per cent, Hispanic 19 per cent; Asian/Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 11 per cent, American Indian/Alaskan Native 24 per cent and multiple race 15 per cent – whereas the total US poverty rate is 13 per cent.
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. Wealthier Americans are more likely to live into their 70s and 80s than people in the middle class and the poor, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

There are many reasons for the early death rates of the poor:

  • insecure and low-paying jobs due to outsourcing of US jobs to Asia and Mexico through free trade agreements by both Democrats and Republicans
  • computerisation, automation and globalisation of US jobs
  • weak or non-existent unions
  • single-parent, dysfunctional families with low incomes
  • daily hunger and poor nutritional choices
  • poor basic education and inaccessible higher education
  • poor and crowded housing
  • lifestyle choices of tobacco, alcohol and other addictive drugs 
  • easy availability of guns, high murder and suicide rates
  • lack of exercise and weight control
  • the rich pay little, if any, taxes and practise offshore banking
  • American corporations invest trillions in offshore companies and benefit from low corporate rates of taxation in the US
  • costly and inaccessible private health care system

Meanwhile, American wealth is squandered by getting involved in frequent unnecessary and costly wars, and coups d’état. Trillions of dollars are spent on annual defence budgets and not on the societal needs of the American people.

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Morris Givner, Halifax, Nova Scotia

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