Poverty has now become the fourth leading cause of death in the US, according to a new report released by the University of California.
The study, published 17 April 2023 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that current poverty could be linked to an estimated 183,003 US deaths in 2019 among people 15 years and older, while cumulative poverty resulted in 295,431 fatalities.
Social issues and health complications more commonly associate with American mortality, such as obesity, diabetes, drug overdoses, suicides, firearms, and homicides, were less lethal than poverty, and UCR Professor of Public Policy and lead author, Dr David Brady, explained that only heart disease, cancer, and smoking were associated with a greater number of deaths.
“Poverty kills as much as dementia, accidents, stroke, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes,” Dr Brady said.
“Poverty silently killed 10 times as many people as all the homicides in 2019, 4.7 times as many deaths as firearms, 3.9 times as many deaths as suicide, and 2.6 times as many deaths as drug overdose.
“Yet homicide, firearms and suicide get vastly more attention. Our study shows that poverty should get greater consideration by policymakers.”
The analysis estimated the number of poverty deaths by analysing income data kept by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and death data from household surveys from the Cross-National Equivalent File.
Another finding was that people living in poverty – those with incomes less than 50% of the U.S. median income — had roughly the same survival rates until they hit their 40s, after which they died at significantly higher rates than people with more adequate incomes and resources.
Cumulative poverty was associated with approximately 60% greater mortality than current poverty.
Dr Brady pointed out that in addition to the emotional suffering of surviving family members and friends, deaths from poverty were associated with significant financial costs for the family, community, and government.
According to the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) the 2022 Poverty in Australia Snapshot, which applied the same definition of poverty used by the UOC study, showed that there were 3.3 million Australians living below the poverty line of $489 per week for a single adult and $1,027 for a couple with two children.
“One in eight adults and one in six children are living in poverty,” the report noted.
Similarly, Australia’s Children, a report released on 18 March 2020 by the AIHW, found of June 2019, 11% (289,000 of 2,667,900) of households with children aged 0–14 were jobless households, with longitudinal data from the Study of Australian Children showing that long exposure to family joblessness was associated with poorer cognitive, emotional, and physical development outcomes for children.
“Children in jobless families are significantly more likely living in deprivation across multiple health and wellbeing indicators,’ the AIHW noted.
“Further, the negative impacts of joblessness on parenting can be passed onto children who do not learn the skills required to find and retain jobs and may have diminished desire to succeed in education and employment.”
Just this week (18 April 2023), Homelessness Australia called for increased support for young Australians in the upcoming federal budget following the release of their latest report, which revealed that nearly 40,000 children and young people received homeless services on an annual basis.
The study showed that while youth support increased by 10% during the pandemic, rents have grown by 24% during the same period, with young people often left with just $13 a day to survive on after paying for accommodation.
ACOSS has called on the government to increase income support payments for young people to at least $73 a day, nearly double the current rate of $40, to help avert the growing crisis, which if left unaddressed, could significantly impact Australia’s quality and length of life.
“Because the US consistently has high poverty rates, these estimates can contribute to understanding why the US has comparatively lower life expectancy,” Dr Brady said.
“If we had less poverty, there’d be a lot better health and well-being, people could work more, and they could be more productive… All of those are benefits of investing in people through social policies.”