By Jennifer M. McGivney
Older adults with wealth live longer than those with low incomes, says a new report from the National Council on Aging and the LTSS Center.
Nine years. That’s the difference in life expectancy between low-income older adults and the wealthiest older adults in the United States. Americans in the top quintile of wealth can afford to live nearly a decade longer than those in the bottom quintile.
These are the stunning results behind a new report, Low-Income Older Adults Die 9 Years Earlier than Those with Greatest Wealth, released by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and research partners at the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston. The report reveals startling results that measure the relationship between wealth and mortality in the U.S.
From 2018 to 2022, older adults in the three lowest quintiles of net worth had a mortality rate nearly double that of older adults in the top two quintiles. In the bottom quintile, people died, on average, nine years earlier than those in the top quintile.
“Look at the Declaration of Independence: All people are created equal and have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” says Marc Cohen, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston and one of the study’s authors. “This is life, right? It’s the first thing. I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes it’s okay for there to be this level of disparity in mortality by wealth class.”
The latest NCOA report is a continuation and expansion of research on the fiscal health of older adults that Cohen and co-author Jane Tavares, a senior research fellow at the LTSS Center, have conducted for NCOA. In 2020, their research revealed that 80% of American households age 60 and over would not be able to weather a financial shock, such as a divorce, a health setback, or a need for long-term services and supports (LTSS). The new report confirms that the 80% statistic remains accurate.
“Our goal is to take a financial temperature on older adults across the country,” says Tavares. “How well are people doing? How many assets do they have as they head into later life? If people have health issues, become widowed, or lose a job, can they weather that? There’s that misconception that older adults are asset-rich, and that’s not the reality that we see in the research.”
In the latest report, wealth stands in for a nearly immeasurable number of variables, Cohen says. Money represents a lifetime of options available to those who have more of it: better medical care, education, secure housing, good health habits, and nutritious foods, among others.
“Wealth is socioeconomics,” Cohen says. “All of those social determinants of health lead to such a large difference.”