Want to Live Longer? Get More Money. That’s the less than uplifting message of a new report from NCOA and LeadingAge LTSS Center at UMass Boston. At one level, it is not surprising to see the association between income and life expectancy, as this has been widely studied by numerous researchers, most famously by Raj Chetty of Harvard.
But the new research offers a striking new picture of how life expectancy disparities play out in the years past 60. Looking only at households headed by a person age 60 or older, the researchers found a nine-year life expectancy gap between the wealthiest 10% and the least wealthy 10%. In the study, which covered the years 2018-2022, the lowest decile had household wealth of $0 and an average life expectancy of 76. In the top 10%, household assets totaled about $2.5 million by 2022 (a 40% increase over the study period), and an average life expectancy of 85 years.
Overall, wealth in the top 20% of older households increased substantially, while the other 80% saw only very slight increases, stagnation, or even declines. These are all reflective of increasing gaps in wealth and health between the top 20% and everyone else, leading the researchers to conclude that virtually the entire bottom 80% of older adults would be unable to pay for a financial shock such as long-term care services and supports.