Surprising links have emerged between income inequality and a host of social problems, including mental illness, substance abuse, incarceration, educational failure, teenage pregnancy, lower life expectancy, violence and infant mortality. Such links dont exist when you look just at average income. The inequality itself is to blame. This is well documented in a book called The Spirit Level by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Drawing on decades of work, the researchers found, essentially, that people who live in economically unequal places -- such as Louisiana or the United States as a whole -- tend to live harder lives. Not just poor people. All people. When the researchers plotted income inequality against an index of social problems that included infant mortality, mental health and others, they got the chart below, which shows that more unequal places tend to have more of these issues. The United States, the most unequal of the developed countries, for example, also has the worlds highest incarceration rate and a higher infant mortality rate than comparable nations. Sweden, meanwhile, has a low level of income inequality and fares much better on these social measures. cnn/2013/10/29/opinion/sutter-lake-providence-income-inequality/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:28:28 +0000
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