Inequality, Race, and Health
Why might income inequality be a health hazard, and what accounts for the fact that people die earlier in American states and cities where income inequality is higher? If income is protective of health, and the relationship is concave, then redistribution from rich to poor will improve aggregate health, although this effect appears to be too small to explain the geographical patterns in the United States. If health depends on others' incomes, for example if health is linked to relative deprivation, then income will be protective of health for individuals, and income inequality will be hazardous to health in the aggregate.8 But if the NLMS is used to look at the probability of death as a function of income for white males and females on a state by state basis, there is no evidence of any link between the estimated coefficients and state-level measures of income inequality.