Life expectancy of 40-year-olds with household incomes below $28,000, adjusted for race* 76

77

78

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83 *Race-adjusted mortality rates control for differences in racial composition.

This is the conclusion of a large study of anonymous earnings records and death certificates, published Monday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The report underscores the role of geography in attaining longevity, particularly for the poor.

Life expectancy of poor men Life expectancy of poor women New York City 86 years Chicago Austin, Tex. 84 years U.S. avg. 82 years Knoxville, Tenn. New York City Chicago 80 years Detroit 78 years U.S. avg. Austin, Tex. 76 years Knoxville, Tenn. 74 years Detroit 72 years 2001 2014 2001 2014 Life expectancy of poor men Life expectancy of poor women N.Y.C. 86 yrs. Chicago Austin, Tex. 84 yrs. 82 yrs. U.S. avg. Knoxville, Tenn. N.Y.C. Chicago 80 yrs. Detroit 78 yrs. Austin, Tex. U.S. avg. 76 yrs. Knoxville, Tenn. 74 yrs. Detroit 72 yrs. 2001 2014 2001 2014

Nationally, the life expectancy of an average 40-year-old grew by about two years. But the researchers found the growth to be highly uneven, with most of the increases going to the wealthiest. Life expectancies for the poor in the United States stayed mostly flat.

Life expectancy* Compared to Compared to poor in U.S.

The researchers found tremendous national variation in life expectancy. A poor person in New York or Santa Barbara, Calif. – places with some of the highest life expectancy for the poor – lived about four years longer than a person in Gary, Ind., or Tulsa, Okla., two areas with some of the lowest life expectancies after accounting for differences in race.*

If you’re rich, it doesn’t really matter where you live. For the poor, location matters much more.

U.S. Pct. Income Life Expectancy Compared To National Avg.

A person in the top quarter of the income distribution – roughly, someone in a household making more than $100,000 per year – tended to have roughly the same life span regardless of location.

Yes, many of these correlates may seem obvious: Places with high rates of smoking or obesity tend to have high rates of mortality. Fourteen years of data on millions of Americans’ incomes and deaths are not necessary to convince most people of that simple fact.

But the characteristics that mattered less may be surprising, too. Research showed that the uninsured rate and the unemployment rate, for example, did not correlate to life expectancy.