The rich live longer and the wealth gap among older households is growing

[Uncle Joe]

A new federal report puts the stakes of rising income and wealth inequality in terms of life and death: Poorer Americans are dying younger than richer Americans.

While average life expectancy has overall risen in the United States, people with lower incomes tend to have shorter lives than those with higher incomes, a study from the Government Accountability Office, commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016, found. About 74 percent of Americans in the top fifth percentile of mid-career wealth lived into their 70s and 80s, whereas only 52 percent of adults in the bottom fifth lived that long. The study found that disparities in income and wealth among older households have become greater over the past three decades.

(snip)

And as the GAO study found, this wealth gap is specifically growing among older households. In 2016, 89 percent of the households in the bottom fifth of income had no retirement accounts, and another 10 percent had account balances of less than $50,000. By comparison, 86 percent of Americans that were among the highest earners by middle age had retirement savings. This growing divide was also present when it came to home ownership. The home ownership rate for households in the bottom 20 percent of wealth in 2016 was 19 percent, significantly lower than the rate of home ownership in that income group in 2007, which sat at 28 percent.

(snip)

For example, Trump’s latest budget also specifically went after the program that gives assistance to those who have disabilities that prevent them from being in the workforce, amounting to $25 billion in cuts over the next 10 years: roughly $10 billion from the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. The administration says the money will be found through cutting down on fraud — a common conservative talking point.

(snip)

https://www.vox.com/2019/9/10/20857668/life-expectancy-wealth-gap-bernie-sanders

[guillaumeb]

1. Recommended.

But even here we see defenders of predatory capitalists like Jeff Bezos and the Walton family.

The goal of the 1% is for workers to die without ever retiring. Taking the country back, to quote the Tea Party, and taking the country back to 1890, when retirement was never an option for the working class.

[Newest Reality]

2. When you are in your

60s, live in a tent through the cold winter and have $6 per day from SNAP for food, a shorter lifespan is a real blessing! I mean, imagine ten or twenty more years of that? They shoot horses, don't they?

Longevity is a real curse because health issues also creep in and it is just downhill all the way. There is relief in the idea of release.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I prefer relief in the idea of relief to be paramount.

Longevity has enough challenges and rewards, I believe we as a nation would be wise to recognize that and not leave our people to the wolves.

[Newest Reality]

4. I agree.

It would be nice. The numbers of homeless seniors are growing in many places now.

I was just speaking personally. I really am very tired of living that way. There is no relief in that. Thanks to libraries, there is a place to warm up during the day, at least, but no showers for weeks sometimes is, well.

[Uncle Joe]

5. I'm

sorry for your struggles.