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by yummyfajitas 4503 days ago
Inequality went up, so did life expectancy. So by your criteria, we should probably not worry about inequality. What health outcome do you believe has decreased, as a result of inequality increasing?

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

What data (if any) would be sufficient to convince you that inequality is not a problem?

2 comments

You seem to be basing all your arguments on national averages. That data shows none of the variances in life expectancy depending on race, class, region, and income.

Other measures of the social ills correlated with being very poor? In cities, if you are also black or hispanic , a high chance of death by violence. A relatedly high rate of incarceration, often for nonviolent crimes. High rates of children in the foster system.

Just because the averages nationwide are slowly ticking up over time, does not mean that there are not significant populations slipping backwards.

If you believe that life expectancy in some particular group has gone down in a manner correlated with inequality, post data showing it.

In cities, if you are also black or hispanic , a high chance of death by violence.

Do you believe that if the 1% had less money, poor blacks/hispanics would be less likely to kill other poor blacks/hispanics? If not, this is irrelevant.

I haven't double checked this, but I strongly suspect that even as inequality has risen in the US, the rate of poor blacks being murdered has gone down. (Reason: poor blacks being murdered is a big chunk of the murder rate, and murders and other crime have generally gone down.)

According to http://www.ahrq.gov

In general, poor populations have reduced access to high-quality care. While people with low incomes are more likely to be uninsured, income-related differences in quality of care that are independent of health insurance coverage have also been demonstrated (Brown, et al., 2003).

Also this metric has increased over the years:

People without a usual source of care who indicated a financial or insurance reason for not having a source of care.

You just moved the goalposts. Previously health outcomes was your target. Your source does not demonstrate that quality of care wentt down.

What data (if any) would convince you that inequality is not a problem?