Missing Poor in the U.S.

Comparability; Income gradient in mortality; Measurement; Poverty; Selection biases; Sociology and Political Science; Economics, Econometrics and Finance (all); Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Abstract :

[en] Given that poor individuals face worse survival conditions than non-poor individuals, one can expect that a steeper income gradient in mortality leads, through stronger income-based selection, to a lower poverty rate at the old age (i.e. the "missing poor" hypothesis). This paper uses U.S. state-level data on poverty at age 65+ and life expectancy by income levels to provide an empirical test of the missing poor hypothesis. Using average temperature as an instrument for mortality differentials, we show that instrumented changes in mortality differentials have a negative and statistically significant effect on old-age poverty: a 1 % increase in the mortality differential implies a 16 % decrease in the 65+ headcount poverty rate. Using those regression results, we compute hypothetical old-age poverty rates while neutralizing the impact of the income gradient in mortality, and show that correcting for heterogeneity in income-based selection effects modifies the comparison of old-age poverty prevalence across states.

Disciplines :

Economic systems & public economics

Author, co-author :

Lefebvre, Mathieu ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Ecole de Gestion de l'Université de Liège ; Aix Marseille University, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France

Pestieau, Pierre ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Ecole de Gestion de l'Université de Liège

Ponthiere, Grégory ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège : UER > UER Economie ; UCLouvain, Hoover Chair in Economic and Social Ethics, Collège Dupriez, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium

Language :

English

Title :

Missing Poor in the U.S.

Publication date :

December 2024

Journal title :

Journal of Economic Inequality

ISSN :

1569-1721

eISSN :

1573-8701

Publisher :

Springer

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

865 - 891

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10888-024-09625-w.pdf

Funders :

ANR - Agence Nationale de la Recherche
AMU - Aix-Marseille University

Funding text :

The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their insightful suggestions. They thank also participants of seminars at the University of Freiburg and Aix-Marseille School of Economics as well as participants at the 19th Journ\u00E9es Louis-Andr\u00E9 Gerard-Varet, the 8th meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality and the 20th International Conference on Public Economic Theory. This work was supported by the French National Research Agency Grant ANR-17-EURE-0020, and by the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University - A*MIDEX.

Available on ORBi :

since 18 April 2026

Statistics

Number of views

107 (0 by ULiège)

Number of downloads

45 (0 by ULiège)

More statistics

Scopus citations^®

Scopus citations^®
without self-citations

OpenAlex citations

Bibliography

D. Acemoglu S. Johnson Disease and development: the effect of life expectancy on economic growth J. Polit. Econ. 115 6 925 985
J.E. Aldy An environmental kuznets curve analysis of U.S state-level carbon dioxide emissions The J. Environ. Development 14 1 48 72
H. Anderson Air pollution and mortality: A history Atmos. Environ. 43 16 142 152
I. Andrews J.H. Stock L. Sung Weak Instruments in IV Regression: Theory and Practice Annual Rev. Econ. 11 1 727 753
Apergis, N., Christou, C., Gupta, R.: Are there Environmental Kuznets Curves for US state-level CO2 emissions?. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 69(C), 551–558 (2017)
Atasoy, B.: Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis across the U.S.: Evidence from panel mean group estimators. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 77(C), s 731–747 (2017)
E. Backlund P. Sorlie N. Johnson A comparison of the relationships of education and income with mortality: the national longitudinal mortality study Soc. Sci. Med. 49 10 1373 1384
A. Barreca K. Clay O. Deschênes M. Greenstone J. Shapiro Convergence in Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from High Temperatures and Mortality, 1900–2004 Amer. Econ. Rev. 105 5 247 251
A. Barreca K. Clay O. Deschênes M. Greenstone J. Shapiro Adaptating to Climate Change: The remarkable decline in the US Temperature-mortality relationship over the twentieth century J. Polit. Econ. 124 1 105 160
Basu, R., Samet, J.: Relation between elevated ambient temperature and mortality: a review of the epidemiologic evidence. Epidemiologic Review. 190–202 (2002)
C. Baudelot Y. Caillé O. Godechot S. Mercier Renal diseases and social inequalities in access to transplantation in France Population-E 71 1 23 51
R. Beelen O. Raaschou-Nielsen M. Stafoggia et al. Effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on natural-cause mortality: an analysis of 22 European cohorts within the multicentre ESCAPE project The Lancet 383 785 795
M. Belloni R. Alessie A. Kalwij C. Marinacci Lifetime income and old-age mortality risk in Italy over two decades Demogr. Res. 29 45 1261 1298
N. Bossuyt S. Gadeyne P. Deboosere H. Van Oyen Socio-economic inequalities in healthy expectancy in Belgium Public Health 118 3 10
M. Cervelatti U. Sunde Life expectancy and economic growth: the role of the demographic transition J. Econ. Growth 16 2 99 133
Chan, M., Weinhold, R., Thoams, R., Gohlke, J., Portier, C.: Environmental predictors of US county mortality patterns on a national basis. PLoS One 10(12) (2015)
Chetty, R., Stepner, M., Abraham, S., Lin, S., Scuderi, B., Turner, N., Bergeron, A., Cutler, D.: The Association between income and life expectancy in the United States, 2001 – 2014. The Journal of the American Medical Association, April 11, 2016, 315 (14) (2016)
J.P. Cristia Rising mortality and life expectancy differentials by lifetime earnings in the United States J. Health Econ. 28 5 984 995
M. De Nardi E. French J. Bailey Jones J. McCauley Medical spending of the US elderly Fisc. Stud. 37 3–4 717 747
A. Deaton Health, inequality and economic development J. Econ. Literature 41 113 158
A. Deaton C. Paxson Aging and inequality in income and health Amer. Econ. Rev. 88 248 253
M. Dell B. Jones B. Olken Temperature and income: reconciling new cross-sectional and panel estimates Amer. Econ. Rev.: Papers And Proceedings 99 2 198 204
M. Dell B. Jones B. Olken Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century Amer. Econ. J. Macroeconomic 4 3 66 75
M. Dell B. Jones B. Olken What do we learn from the weather? The new climate-Economy literature J. Econ. Literature 52 3 740 798
Deryugina, T., Hsiang, S.: Does the environment still matter? daily temperature and income in the United States, NBER Working Paper. No. 20750 (2014)
O. Deschenes M. Greenstone Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 3 4 152 185
O. Deschenes E. Moretti Extreme weather events, mortality and migration Rev. Econ. Statistics 91 4 659 81
Q. Di F. Dominici J.D. Schwartz Air pollution and mortality in the Medicare population N. Engl. J. Med. 376 2513 2522
Duggan, J., Gillingham, R., Greenlees, J.: Mortality and lifetime income: evidence from U.S. Social Security Records. IMF Working Paper, 07/15 (2007)
H.O. Duleep Measuring the e ¤ect of income on adult mortality using longitudinal administrative record data J. Human Resources 21 2 238 251
A. Flint T. Novotny Poverty status and cigarette smoking prevalence and cessation in the United States, 1983–1993: the independent risk of being poor Tob. Control 6 14 18
F. Forastiere M. Stafoggia C. Tasco S. Picciotto N. Agabiti G. Cesaroni C. Schwartz Socioeconomic status, particulate air pollution and daily mortality: differential exposure or differential susceptibility Am. J. Ind. Med. 50 3 208 216
J. Gallup J. Sachs A. Mellinger Geography and Economic Development Int. Reg. Sci. Rev. 22 2 179 232
K.O. Haustein Smoking and poverty Eur. J. Prev. Cardiol. 13 3 312 318
M. Hazan Longevity and Lifetime Labor Supply: Evidence and Implications Econometrica 77 6 1829 1863
F. Jusot Mortalité et revenu en France: construction et résultats d’une enquête cas-témoins Sant é, Société et Solidarité 3 2 173 186
A. Kalwij R. Alessie M. Knoef The association between the individual income and the remaining life expectancy at the age of 65 in the Netherlands Demography 50 1 181 206
R. Kanbur D. Mukherjee Premature mortality and poverty measurement Bull. Econ. Res. 59 4 339 359
M. Lefebvre P. Pestieau G. Ponthiere Measuring poverty without the Mortality Paradox Soc. Choice Welfare 40 1 285 316
M. Lefebvre P. Pestieau G. Ponthiere FGT old-age poverty measures and the Mortality Paradox: theory and evidence Rev. Income Wealth 64 2 428 458
M. Lefebvre P. Pestieau G. Ponthiere Missing poor and income mobility J. Comp. Econ. 47 330 366
M. Lefebvre P. Pestieau G. Ponthiere Premature mortality and poverty measurement in an OLG economy J. Popul. Econ. 32 2 621 664
P. Makela Alcohol-related mortality as a function of socio-economic status Addiction 94 867 886
E. Miguel S. Satyanath E. Sergenti Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach J. Polit. Econ. 112 4 725 53
Milligan, K., Schirle, T.: The evolution of longevity: Evidence from Canada. NBER Working Paper No. 24929 (2018)
A. Milojevic C. Niedzwiedz J. Pearce J. Milner I. Mackenzie R. Doherty P. Wilkinson Socioeconomic and urban-rural differentials in exposure to air pollution and mortality burden in England Environ. Health 16 1 104
E.R. Pamuk Social class inequality in mortality from 1921 to 1972 in England and Wales Popul. Stud. 39 17 31
E.R. Pamuk Social class inequality in infant mortality in England and Wales from 1921 to 1980 Eur. J. Popul. 4 1 21
D. Qian Y. Wang A. Zanobetti Y. Wang P. Koutrakis C. Choirat F. Dominici J. Schwartz Air Pollution and Mortality in the Medicare Population N. Engl. J. Med. 376 2513 2522
A. Romelsjo M. Lundberg The changes in the social class distribution of moderate and high alcohol consumption and of alcohol-related disabilities over time in Stockholm County in Sweden Addiction 91 1307 1323
M. Salm The effect of pensions on longevity: evidence from Union Army veterans Economic Journal 121 595 619
A.K. Sen Mortality as an indicator of economic success and failure Economic Journal 108 1 25
S. Snyder W. Evans The e¤ect of income on mortality: evidence from the social security notch Rev. Econ. Stat. 88 3 482 495
U. Soytas R. Sari B. Ewing Energy consumption, income, and carbon emissions in the United States Ecol. Econ. 62 3–4 482 489
D. Staiger J.H. Stock Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments Econometrica 65 3 557 586
J.A. Van Oers I.M. Bongers L.A. Van De Goor H.F. Garretsen Alcohol consumption, alcohol-related problems, problem drinking, and socioeconomic status Alcohol Alcohol. 34 78 88
H. Van Oyen N. Bossuyt P. Deboosere S. Gadeyne E. Abatith S. Demarest Differential inequity in health expectancy by region in Belgium Social Prevention Medicine 50 5 301 310
Y. Wang I. Kloog B.A. Coull A. Kosheleva A. Zanobetti J.D. Schwartz Estimating causal effects of long-term PM2.5 exposure on mortality in New Jersey Environemental Health Perspective 124 1182 1188