Income Inequality and Health

(52:00) Guest: Jessica Allia Williams, post-doctorate fellow at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health  “Income Inequality” - or the gap between the rich and the poor in America – has been expanding in the last 30 years. Today, just 5 percent of wage earners account for nearly a quarter of total income. Cash compensation for CEOs is 90 times that of rank-and-file employees. The debate over income inequality raging from local city halls to the chambers of Congress generally focuses on “fairness” and “morality” and “social justice.”   What about plain old “health?” Is it possible that America is less-healthy because this gap between the rich and the poor is so wide?  Higher income inequality can result in stress with social comparisons, according to Williams.  Williams says it is important to inform “…people of these connections between work and health that they might not be aware of.”