Name: How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being
Uploaded: 2019-05-18T22:29:38.000Z
Duration: 8 min 23 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anger over economic inequality
and its effects is an important theme running

through our national politics in both parties
now.

Adverbs of degree

But just how you gauge the true impacts of
inequality on health and happiness is a bit

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman,
dives into some of those distinctions.

It's part of our weekly segment, Making Sense.

PAUL SOLMAN: As a record number of private
jets descended on Davos last month for the

World Economic Forum, the anti-poverty nonprofit
Oxfam released its annual inequality statistics.

According to Oxfam, the 26 richest people
on Earth, just over the seating capacity of

the Bombardier 7500, have the same net worth
as the poorest half of the world's population,

But a major discovery of medical research
in recent years has been that inequality doesn't

RICHARD WILKINSON, Epidemiologist: The biggest
effects are on the poor, but the vast majority

of the population does less well if they're
in a more unequal society.

PAUL SOLMAN: Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson
and Kate Pickett document this claim in their

Yes, economic growth drives greater contentment,
happiness, but only to a point.

KATE PICKETT, Epidemiologist: In the rich,
developed world, economic growth is no longer

PAUL SOLMAN: And so, as poor countries get
richer...

PAUL SOLMAN: And then, if you have inequality
or increasing inequality in that country,

KATE PICKETT: You will not be doing as well
as the other rich countries.

PAUL SOLMAN: It's the difference between the
U.S. and Scandinavia, says Pickett.

KATE PICKETT: If you and I have equal education,
the same incomes, the same wealth, the same

social class, if you live in a more equal
society than I do, you are more likely to

live longer, your children to be healthier,
less likely to do drugs or drop out of school.

Everything about your world is going to be
better

PAUL SOLMAN: Consider mental illness, which
Pickett and Wilkinson first linked to inequality

KATE PICKETT: Since then, I think we're seeing
an epidemic of mental illness in the most

unequal rich, developed countries, about 80
percent of our young people feeling incredibly

stressed, many of them suicidal, many of them
hurting themselves.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, of course, it's not just
the young, says Pickett's husband.

RICHARD WILKINSON: In Britain, three-quarters
of the population feel overwhelmed by stress

RICHARD WILKINSON: Yes, yes, from the Mental
Health Foundation.

A third of the population have had suicidal
thoughts in the last year.

And the figures in the U.S. are pretty similar.

About 20 percent of your population have diagnosable
mental illness at any one time.

RICHARD WILKINSON: So we judge each other
more by status in a more unequal society.

And with that goes more worries about how
we are seen and judged.

KATE PICKETT: The effects are biggest among
the poor.

But they go right across to the top 10th,
10 percent of the income distribution.

It affects our physiology, our hormones, the
way we think, the way we behave.

And those changes have been linked to a range
of mental illnesses that we know are related

PAUL SOLMAN: According to GoodRx.com, depression
and anxiety prescriptions are on the rise

in the U.S., and they track income very closely.

NARRATOR: Even when you're taking an antidepressant,
you may still be struggling with depression.

PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, richer people can
afford more antidepressants and the like.

But the well-off sure do consume a lot of
them.

And if depression isn't the functional definition
of unhappiness, what is?

After all, I asked economists Betsey Stevenson
and Justin Wolfers, doesn't everyone know

that more money doesn't make you happier?

After about $70,000 a year of household income
-- maybe it's a little more in San Francisco

or something -- people are no happier making
more than that than the people who make that

JUSTIN WOLFERS, University of Michigan: It's
a truism, but it's false.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wolfers cautions that Wilkinson
and Pickett have taken the inequality argument

JUSTIN WOLFERS: Rich people are happier than
poor people, and that's true all the way along

People earning half-a-million are happier
than those earning a quarter-of-a-million,

happier than people earning $100,000, happier
than people earning $50,000, all the way.

What about 40 years worth of happiness research
on lottery winners, going back to a widely

JUSTIN WOLFERS: So that original study was
a study of, I think, 30 lottery winners.

PAUL SOLMAN: Actually, just 22 lottery winners.

But a much more recent study tracked hundreds
of lottery winners in Sweden.

JUSTIN WOLFERS: It turns out that folks who
won big lotteries are much happier than folks

who won smaller lotteries, are much happier
than folks who won no lottery whatsoever.

PAUL SOLMAN: Just as their cats may be, as
this Swedish lottery ad suggests.

JUSTIN WOLFERS: So it turns out, big bump
in income, big bump in happiness.

PAUL SOLMAN: The Pickett-Wilkinson response?

Don't put too much stock into self-rated health
and happiness reports.

KATE PICKETT: So the United States has a very
high level of good self-rated health.

About 80 percent of Americans say their health
is great.

But their life expectancy is at the bottom
of the international league table among the

Now, Japan, which has the highest life expectancy
in the world, people live there longer than

anywhere else, only about half of them think
their health is good.

So there's a complete mismatch between subjective
and objective measures when it comes to health.

RICHARD WILKINSON: So you have to be very
careful with that data.

PAUL SOLMAN: So when people report greater
subjective happiness as a function of having

greater wealth, are they kidding themselves?

KATE PICKETT: No, they're not kidding themselves,
but we find that these things are related

So you're much more likely to say that you
are fabulous if you live in a more unequal

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being

overwhelmed

mental

depression

boost