The millionaire with a stomach ulcer due to all the stress he’s under is a stereotype of old movies and television. As Peter Orszag points out at Bloomberg, that might have been true in the 1930s but not so much anymore:
The new Hamilton Project analysis, however, noticeably strengthens the evidence. (I am on Hamilton’s advisory council.) Diane Schanzenbach, Megan Mumford, Ryan Nunn and Lauren Bauer examined changes over time in the relationship between health and income. And, using laboratory measurements of health biomarkers from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, they constructed a new measure of stress load.
That survey is particularly insightful for the purpose at hand because it collects health measurements along with more traditional socioeconomic and related data, and because its data go back several decades. The Hamilton team looked at the measurements from 1976-80 and 2009-14 to see how things had changed.
Beginning with self-reported health, the researchers found a decline for all income groups, but for high-income people, the change was small and not statistically significant. For low-income people, the decline was much larger and statistically significant.
Being poor is extremely stressful. Heck being anything other than rich is stressful and getting more so.
There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that unemployment increases the risk of divorce, particularly for men. Since divorce is pretty darned stressful and itself may contribute to poverty, there’s the possibility of a vicious circle.
I’ve been bottom quintile and top quintile. Life is infinitely easier at the top. Absurdly easier. People who haven’t done both ends have no idea. The defining emotion of poverty is fear, and fear wears on you.