Current poverty (living below half the median income in a given year) is associated with approximately 183,000 deaths among Americans aged 15+ per year (about 6.5% of total deaths in that age group). Cumulative/long-term poverty (persistent over 10 years) is associated with around 295,000 deaths in the same year (about 10.5% of deaths), making it the fourth-leading contributor to mortality, behind heart disease, cancer, and smoking. This places poverty ahead of factors like obesity, diabetes, drug overdoses, suicides, firearms, accidents, stroke, and homicide.
Affordability Solved!
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Assuming an 80 year old lifetime, the 10 seconds you’re never getting back reading Ted’s post and comic amounts to 0.0000004% of a death, which doesn’t seem like much, but when you multiply it across all of his readers you get.. never mind!