A study in the New England Journal of Medicine Association between Wealth and Mortality in the United States and Europe revealed that even the top 1% of earners in the US die younger than the poorest people in Europe.
In fact, Americans die earlier than Europeans across all income levels.
Wealth can buy many things in America, but a new study reveals it cannot buy European-level longevity—even the richest Americans have survival rates on par with Western Europe’s poorest.
A striking study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has exposed a massive longevity gap between the United States and Europe, revealing that even the wealthiest 25% of Americans have roughly the same survival rates as the poorest quarter of people in northern and western Europe. While possessing greater wealth correlates with a longer lifespan on both continents, the mortality risk gap between the rich and poor is dramatically wider in the U.S.. Researchers tracked more than 73,000 adults aged 50 to 85 over a decade, finding that Americans at every wealth level suffered from higher mortality rates than their European peers. Wealth in America may offer comfort, but it fails to shield even affluent citizens from the nation’s broader, systemic health disadvantages.
According to the researchers, the driving forces behind this disparity stem from America’s fragmented healthcare system, higher rates of chronic diseases, and deep-seated societal inequalities. In European countries, stronger social safety nets, universal healthcare access, and robust public infrastructure help decouple personal wealth from basic life expectancy. In contrast, the U.S. system forces individuals to rely heavily on personal resources, yet still falls short of delivering comparable health outcomes. Ultimately, the study suggests that addressing the U.S. life expectancy crisis requires more than individual prosperity; it demands systemic reforms to tackle the root environmental and structural health hazards that plague the entire nation.
source: Machado, S., Kyriopoulos, I., Orav, E. J., & Papanicolas, I. Association between Wealth and Mortality in the United States and Europe. New England Journal of Medicine, 392(13), 1310-1319.
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