Those who earn more money live longer. Higher paid people get to experience more years. That's one heck of a perquisite to add into your total reward package. Hard to think of anything more valuable than life itself.
No one is sure why the rich have longer lifespans than the poor. It is not just medicine. Despite all the ongoing research, the full reasons remain unclear. Compensation people tend to understand the obscurity of statistical findings better than most others. We know that “spurious relationships” can exist, involving misleading correlations of variables ... stuff like how more iPhone sales relate to deaths from falling down steps. The hints discovered are not conclusive.
One might postulate that the richest can afford the best medical care while the ailments of the poor frequently escalate into avoidable fatalities. Yet, the data fail to show the kinds of premature deaths among those who earn low wages that would be expected if the lack of access to expensive health benefits were a significant factor.
Those with higher lifetime incomes have longer typical life spans. The difference that was a bare one year advantage in 1970 has expanded to almost six years in 2001. That simple fact generates acrimonious political controversy in the United States. Coddling the filthy rich has not stimulated greater wealth, much less equal health, for all. Economic prosperity has not “trickled down” but has increasingly concentrated among even fewer at the very top. Lower marginal tax rates have not created benefits for the middle class or better lives for the lowest wage-earners.
By the way, despite my apparently liberal orthodoxy on this topic, those phrases always bother me. I really don't know anyone anymore who would be called “upper class”. Who are they? Not to insult my many friends, peers and acquaintances, but none of them descended from royalty or hold peerages. Don't know any of the scions of American gentry. Who has inherited large sums of filthy lucre that permits them to simply sit back and yawn as they enjoy the disinterested nonproductive life of the idle rich? Actually, I once knew a few people with such backgrounds, but they came from solid Mid-Western stock that rarely flaunted prosperity. They didn't act uppity or sneer at the less fortunate. Most firmly believed that labor is sacred and important for all, including themselves. They behaved modestly with the belief that wealth and power should be applied for practical purposes that benefit all mankind rather than frittered away on selfish personal pleasures.
Nevertheless, prosperous people still enjoy tremendous advantages in life that definitely produce longer lives.
Overall, according to the Brookings Institution study, life expectancy for the bottom 10 percent of wage earners improved by just 3 percent for men born in 1950 compared with those born in 1920. For the top 10 percent, though, it jumped by about 28 percent. (The researchers used a common measure – life expectancy at age 50, and included data from 1984 to 2012).
The decline in smoking and increased access to advanced cancer treatments among the higher educated and more affluent (who tend to be the same) explains some of the variance. Obesity has become less of a factor than in the past, with little differences today between those with the lowest and the highest incomes. Drug problems, which include prescription drug use by the rich as well as street drug abuse by the poor, don't seem to affect one group more than another. No one appears to have tied this issue of life expectancy directly to pay levels yet, but that may be the next step.
Tell your boss that you need a raise. After all, your life depends on it.
E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent compensation advisor with extensive total rewards experience, specializing in job evaluation, market pricing and pay budget distribution. After corporate HR jobs in chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing, he consulted at retail, government, energy, IT, tax-exempt and other industries throughout North America before becoming Senior Associate of pay survey software publisher ERI until returning to consulting in 2015. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook) and speaker, Jim gave expert witness testimony in many reasonable executive compensation cases both for and against the Internal Revenue Service and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.
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Jim, our two cats are certainly 'landed gentry'. They eat well, get great medical care, are kept warm and safe, and have lived very long and happy lives. What their true 'social class' might be has never crossed our minds. Both were 'found' so we never attempted to trace their family history. One we 'saved' when a car hit him and we fixed his broken leg and the other was on 'death row' at the County Animal Shelter. Even though everything that is statistically significant is probably not true, based on your post we are going to try to feed them more, improve the places they sleep perhaps with a silk blanket or two, and provide them with even more 'healthcare' which is certainly going to increase the stress they experience because cats do not very much like to 'hang around' the places where they get their orifices inspected and shots given.
The bottom line is, however, we do want them to live longer so we will 'pay them more' . . . . one of them is 16 and has cancer and the other one has a 'wire' in his leg and limps a bit from his auto accident.
Perhaps our slogan should be, 'compensation can save lives'. With the modifying phrase, "give more compensation, it is good for you".
Posted by: Jay Schuster | 03/03/2016 at 07:40 AM
Wonderful response, Jay! Wish all rescued creatures could land in a place that treats them so well. You reminded me that's also the treatment our rescued non-pedigreed dog gets; but canines seem to appreciate lifestyle improvements more than felines. Maybe people come in similar flavors, now that I think about it. And perhaps we just care more about those we save.
Posted by: E. James (Jim) Brennan | 03/03/2016 at 12:23 PM
To be honest with you, Jim, I was struggling to find some sort of response to your post. Then one of our cats 'hit me up' for a 'food dish replentishment' and the response became clear. All in fun, anyway.
Posted by: Jay Schuster | 03/03/2016 at 03:02 PM