They Also Get More Healthy Years. Wealthy men and women generally have eight to nine more years of “disability-free” life after age 50 than poor people do, according to a new study of English and American adults. Sign up for Science Times Get stories that capture the wonders of nature, the cosmos and the human body.
The rich live longer and are healthier
A study from the US shows that the difference in life expectancy between the poorest and richest one per cent of the income distribution was nearly 15 years for men and 10 years for women. While rich men lived to an average of 87.3 years, the poor lived to 72.7 years.
Rich people live healthy, disability-free lives an average of nine years longer than less wealthy people, according to a major study that lays bare the troubling economic inequalities behind lifespans in the US and UK.
The research between salary and happiness suggests similar insights. Even those on the Forbes 100 wealthiest were only slightly happier than the average Americans, according to a study by Ed Diener of the University of Illinois.
If you have more money, you probably have access to better health care as well as more nutritious foods. You also have less stress from worrying about money, and stress is a factor in mortality, as well.
When it comes to being wealthy, research has found that if you're rich you're likely to live longer, too. Now this isn't because wealthier people have better or healthier genes. Also read: Why do the rich want more money?
Once you hit an annual household income of $75,000 (£62,000), earning more money didn't make you any happier. In 2021, the happiness researcher Matthew Killingsworth released a dissenting study, showing that happiness increased with income and there wasn't evidence of a plateau.
You can have depression regardless of how much money you have or make. Although money makes some aspects of life easier, there are other factors that play into mental health and well-being. The wealthy can get depressed the same way people living in poverty can experience depression.
Recent research on the topic gives conflicting, and sometimes surprising, results. In 2012, an Ipsos poll measuring the degree of happiness in 24 countries found that self-reported levels of happiness were higher in poor and middle-income countries than in rich ones, seemingly confirming popular beliefs.
One study said happiness peaked at $75,000 in income.
Generally, people in lower socioeconomic groups are at greater risk of poor health, have higher rates of illness, disability and death, and live shorter lives than people from higher socioeconomic groups (van Lenthe and Mackenbach 2021).
When we are in good health, we can work more productively. Studies have shown that people in good health are able to earn more money and work more productively. If you're kinder to yourself, you'll be kinder to those around you.
The richest Americans live far longer than their poorest counterparts, a new study shows. Men in the Top 1% can expect to live until age 87.3, nearly 15 years longer than those in the Bottom 1%, according to research by Stanford economics professor Raj Chetty and seven co-authors.
Georgetown study: 'To succeed in America, it's better to be born rich than smart' But according to a recent report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), “Born to Win, Schooled to Lose,” being born wealthy is a better indicator of adult success in the U.S. than academic performance.
It's perfectly okay. You don't have to ashamed of it. You don't have to be ashamed of your friends thinking that being poor is bad–cause it's not. It's not a life choice; being poor is just a life circumstance.
Affluent individuals, including children and teenagers in high-income families, suffer severe anxiety. Some researchers have even argued that these affluent individuals are particularly susceptible to the condition.
Specifically, for the least happy group, happiness rises with income until $100,000, then shows no further increase as income grows. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group the association actually accelerates above $100,000.
And, interestingly, income may not have as much bearing on that at all. Money, it seems, can't buy everything. In fact, new research shows that richer and poorer people are generally as happy as each other. Where they differ is in their level of sadness: higher-income individuals are markedly less sad on a daily basis.
Higher income inequality led to less of all forms of social, cultural, and civic participation among the less wealthy. When inequality is higher the poor do not shift to less expensive forms of participation. In 2015, a study by Lahtinen and Wass suggested that low social mobility reduces turnout among lower classes.
Based on a survey of 1,000 LinkedIn members currently employed in the U.S., researchers found that people who earn between $51,000 and $75,000 generally feel the least stressed. By contrast, of those who make an income of $200,000 or more, nearly 70 percent said they feel stressed.
Rich people also have stress and face difficulties. But their situations are very different. Rich people's stress is often linked to career advancement. It is short-term stress that helps lead them to a long-term goal.
Indeed, some wealthy individuals are even said to suffer from “affluenza,” a social condition among those who are excessively focused on material possessions and consumerism, to the point where their personal values and behaviors are negatively impacted.
While people with higher incomes do tend to score higher on IQ tests, the association only goes so far. In fact, some rich people in the top one percent of earners display less intelligence than their peers earning considerably less.
People born into higher social classes are more overconfident and have "an exaggerated belief" that they will perform better at certain tasks than others, a perception not shared by their lower-class counterparts, a new study published Monday in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found.
A final drawback to great wealth is this: boredom. If you don't have to work and you choose not to, you may have trouble filling your time with meaningful activity.