8-23-08, 12:09 pm
'To be poor in the midst of riches is the worst of poverties' is a thought by Seneca that seems to guide the ideas summarized in a substantial article titled 'Unequal America' that appears in the July issue of Harvard Magazine. It is written by its associate editor, Elizabeth Gudrais.
The author cites a study by Prof. Majid Ezzati, of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and, along with him, reflects that when one thinks about the cause of a drop in life expectancy, one thinks 'about an epidemic like HIV, or the collapse of a social system, like in the former Soviet Union. But such a decline is happening right now in some parts of the United States.'
Between 1983 and 1999, the life expectancy of males dropped in more than 50 US counties. For women, the news was worse: it declined in 900 counties. This means that more than four percent of all American men and 19 percent of all American women must expect a life as long as – or shorter than – the people in their home counties two decades ago.
In fact, the United States, the world's richest nation, is not the healthiest. It doesn't even appear on the list of the 40 nations with the longest life expectancy.
Of course, the United States' decreasing health indicators are not manifested equitably throughout the population but concentrate on the least favored, cautions Professor Ezzati's study, as cited by Gudrais.
The disparities in health issues tend to be proportional to income everywhere. The poor are more prone to get sick and die earlier than others everywhere, but in the United States the gap between the rich and the poor is much, much wider than in any other industrialized nation.
The author believes the average US citizen is more tolerant about income inequality. He seeks equality of opportunities when his European counterparts want fairer wages. In the United States, any debate about inequalities leads to another debate over whether the poor deserve help and solidarity or need to be left to lift themselves up by their bootstraps.
The enactment of tax policies as a procedure for the redistribution of the income of the rich for the benefit of the poor, which serves as a campaign argument in Europe, is not seen the same in the US.
According to the study, inequalities in the US have grown at an ever-faster pace since the late 1970s and have reached a level not seen since the so-called 'Gilded Age' (1870-1900), a period in the nation's history defined by the contrast between the excesses of the super rich and the squalor of the poor.
Early in the 20th Century, the share of total national income drawn by the top 1 percent of the US earners was 18 percent. That share reached an all-time high of 21.1 percent in 1928. After World War II, a period of intense economic and cultural development that brought great prosperity to the American middle class, the top 1 percent of earners took home less than 10 percent of all income through the 1960s and 1970s. But, from then until 1996, the share of the richest 1 percent rose to 15 percent and in 2006, the most recent year for which numbers are available, accounted for 20.3 percent of the total wealth.
In 1965, the average salary of a high-ranking functionary in a bit company in the US was 25 times the average salary of a worker. Today, the distance is 10 times greater -- a multiplication by 250.
In terms of life expectancy, the United States occupies the 21st place among the 30 highly industrialized nations that form the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and 25th place in the infant-mortality list. In view of the preceding date, it can be assumed how different the figures in these two indicators are for the rich and the poor.
The article mentions some recent data about the 'miraculously' high social mobility in the United States, when it states that 42 percent of the children of parents in the poorest segment remain in the most backward segment after they reach adulthood. And 39 percent of the children of parents in the higher segment, continue in that privileged segment after they become adults.
According to research cited by Harvard Magazine, the big social inequalities are always related to scenarios of higher criminality, less happiness and worse mental and physical health, if all these are not the root cause. There is evidence that to live in a society with major disparities -- in health, wealth and education -- is worse for all members of society, not excepting the better-situated members, the article says.
