Today’s report from the National Council on Aging and research partners at LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston reveal the startling relationship between wealth and mortality in the U.S.

“Low-Income Older Adults Die 9 Years Earlier than Those with Greatest Wealth.” The title of this report—released today by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and research partners at LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston—could double as a breaking news headline.

This report reveals startling results that measure the relationship between wealth and mortality in the United States. From 2018 to 2022, older adults in the three lowest quintiles of net worth had a mortality rate nearly double than those in the top two quintiles. In the bottom quintile, people died an average of nine years earlier than those at the top.

“Look at the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal and have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is life, right? It’s the first thing,” says Marc Cohen, PhD, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, one of the study’s authors. “I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes it’s okay for there to be this level of disparity in mortality by wealth class.”

This report is a continuation and expansion of research that Cohen and co-author Jane Tavares, PhD, senior research fellow at LeadingAge LTSS @UMass Boston, have done for NCOA since 2020 on the fiscal health of older adults. Five years ago, their research revealed that 80% of American households age 60 and over would not be able to withstand a financial shock, such as a divorce, a health setback, or a need for long-term services and supports (LTSS). Today’s report reveals that the 80% statistic persists today. LTSS remains one of the most significant and common financial shocks: More than half of adults 65 and older will need these services for less than two years, and 14% will require this care for more than five years. Just one year of a private room in a nursing home costs more than $100,000.

“Our goal is to take a financial temperature on older adults across the country. How well are people doing? How many assets do they have as they head into later life? If people have health issues, become widowed, or lose a job, can they weather that?” Tavares says. “There’s that misconception that older adults are asset rich, and that’s not the reality that we see in the research.”

Older adults in the U.S. face an especially precarious situation. Since 2011, older adults have been the only age group in the country to face steadily increased rates of poverty. Their financial vulnerability persists even as the fortunes of top earners improve. From 2018 to 2022, those in the top 20% of wealth saw significant gains in their financial assets and net worth.

“That’s the red flag appearing from the work that we’re doing,” Tavares says. “We have reached the point where older people are impoverishing themselves to meet basic living costs, to meet their health care costs, to meet the rising cost of living.”

Cohen and Tavares used longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS)—which includes a representative sample of about 20,000 Americans—to assess older adults’ financial security. Their latest NCOA report was their first to factor mortality into their financial assessment. While the authors expected a discrepancy in life expectancy between income levels, the nine-year gap came as a shock. People who rank in the top quintile of wealth in the United States can afford to live nearly a decade longer than those at the bottom.

In this study, wealth stands in for a nearly immeasurable number of variables, Cohen says. Money represents a lifetime of options available to those who have more of it: better medical care, education, secure housing, good health habits, and nutritious foods, among others.

“Wealth is socioeconomics,” Cohen says. “All of those social determinants of health lead to such a large difference.”

The authors hope that the study empowers advocates and policymakers to continue the work of supporting the fiscal and physical health of older adults, who are in an especially vulnerable position in the U.S. Tavares believes that one good place to begin is to raise awareness of the benefits that people are eligible for: About 40% of older adults are unaware that they’re eligible for benefits that they qualify for. Tavares recommends that older adults view their eligibility for benefits via the NCOA’s Benefits CheckUp.

As legislation continues to strip social safety net programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the authors worry how these statistics may worsen in future reports without new policy initiatives.

“The social determinants of health are really important and should continue to be a target for policy initiatives,” Cohen says. “These effects are concentrated in people in the lower socioeconomic classes. Targeting programs that try to help those classes when they are at such a disadvantage is unconscionable for an advanced democratic society.”