The Effects of Income Inequality in U.S. States: Health Disparities across the Life Course

• In Event: 1122 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Poverty, Health and Environment

Abstract

A large body of research has investigated the relationship between income inequality and average health. However, we know much less about the relationship between income inequality and disparities in health between rich and poor, and less still about how such relationships change across the life course. Merging individual data from the Current Population Survey with the Gini coefficient published by the Census Bureau and state characteristics from a variety of sources, I find that the association between income inequality and adult self-reported health is strongly negative for the poorest groups, moderate for middle-income groups, and close to zero for the richest quintile, resulting in substantially larger absolute and relative disparities in health between the rich and the poor in states with higher income inequality. Consistent with theories that the effects of income inequality are lagged and cumulative, the relationship between income inequality and health disparities increases with age and is substantially larger and more robust among adults ages 45 to 64 than among younger adults. Even after accounting for a wide range of individual and state characteristics, differences between rich and poor in the probability of poor self-reported health still tend to be greater in states with higher income inequality, leaving open the possibility that income inequality affects health – especially but not only the health of the poor – through psychosocial mechanisms not directly observed here.

Author

• Beth C. Truesdale, Harvard University