Stupid games with numbers

 

Average life expectancy for a 40-year-old living in a household with 10th percentile income is approximately 78, 83 for 50th percentile and 86 for 90th percentile.

I am going to commit a statistical sin right in front of your eyes. I am going to switch to wealth which is accumulated income.

According to the US Census, a household in the 10th percentile OWES $1,450 while the 50th percentile household has net assets of $140k and 90th percentile has net assets of $1.4M

Now, let us suppose that $1.0 Trillion (1.0*10^12) in wealth evaporated. What would that look like if the relationship between wealth and life expectancy held?

If it only hit households in the upper quintile it would slide 7.7 million households to the 50th percentile and result in a loss of 46 million years of life (assuming two people per household).

If it only hit the bottom half of the wealth curve, it would essentially put everybody in debt and would impact 55 million households and erase an average of 1.5 years from the lives of half the population of the United States.

An inconvenient fact is that the upper half of the income/wealth curve subsidizes the health-care of the bottom half. You cannot penalize the wealthy without some leaking down and negatively impacting the less wealthy.