People live longer in blue states than red; new study points to impact-state policies

cawacko said:
Now you've moved multiple goal posts. You started with saying Cali was the exception to the rule and that was shown to be false. So you turn to global economies? Saudi Arabia is an oil based economy with massive welfare benefits given to its citizens, many of whom work for the government, and that's right wing? And Sweden which is market based economy (with generous welfare benefits) is left wing? Do you just make this stuff up?
Click to expand...

Yes. Yes he does.
 
StoneByStone said:
In the studies I've seen, California was the one exception. From what you've shown me, there are a few exceptions, but blue states still (on average) do better than red states. That's not moving multiple goalposts since my original point was that blue states do better.



I brought up global economics to show that it's not just within America that this happens. It's the same thing when we're talking about the differences between countries.

Serious question, do you know the historical definitions of right-wing and left-wing?
Click to expand...

BULLSHIT numbers. You deny economics. You deny history.
 
StoneByStone said:
The only way you can say there is more income inequality in the blue states is if you single out the exceptions. If you take all states into consideration, there is no question which states have less inequality as well as more overall living standards.
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Special pleading fallacy. BULLSHIT.
 
Bill said:

Noam N. Levey 10 hrs ago

Weak environmental protections, safety rules and labor and civil rights protections may be cutting lives short in conservative states and deepening the divide between red and blue states, according to a new study on links between life expectancy and state policy.

The report, published Tuesday in the health policy journal Milbank Quarterly, finds that states where residents live longest, including California, tend to have much more stringent environmental laws, tougher tobacco and firearms regulations and more protections for workers, minorities and LGBTQ residents.

Since the mid-1980s, the gap among U.S. states in how long their residents live has widened, reversing decades of progress toward greater equality.

One group of states, mostly in the Northeast and the West, have seen average life expectancies rise relatively steadily, placing them on par with the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Those states tend to have more stringent regulations.

By contrast, the life expectancy in states with more conservative health, labor and social policies — concentrated in the South andAppalachia — have stagnated in recent decades, according to the study, which adds to growing research on health and political disparities between states.

California has among the highest average life expectancies in the country, at 81.3 years. It also had the most liberal policies in the nation in 2014, the most recent year the study analyzed, according to the system the authors developed to rank states.

Although the study's authors note that they can't prove that state policies caused the gap in life expectancy, the correlation is a persistent one across multiple states and several decades.

“It’s disheartening to see another example of a missed opportunity by policymakers,” said David Radley, senior scientist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who studies differences in state health policies and the effects on people’s health. Radley was not involved in Milbank report.

The new report may help shape efforts to rethink government policy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed deep structural weaknesses in the U.S. as well as yawning gaps in many state safety nets.

“The overarching conclusion is clear: States that have invested in their populations’ social and economic well-being by enacting more liberal policies over time tend to be the same states that have made considerable gains in life expectancy,” the study’s authors wrote.

Even before the current public health crisis, life expectancy in the U.S. had been declining, setting America apart from most other wealthy nations. That decline has fueled tough questions about domestic policy.

The opioid epidemic, which has had a devastating impact on regions of the country already hit hard by economic stagnation, has been the focus of a lot of the discussion about that shift.

But Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the new study, said the impact of opioids may be only part of the story.

“When we look at what is happening with life expectancy, the tendency is to focus on individual explanations about what Americans are doing,” she said, noting obesity and smoking behaviors as well as drug use. “But state policies are so important.”

To assess what role these policies may be playing, Montez and other researchers reviewed more than 120 policies enacted by states over the years and assessed whether each policy choice in each state was more liberal or more conservative.

Policies included housing rules such as rent control; health and welfare policies such as Medicaid eligibility and welfare limits; labor protections such as paid sick leave and minimum wages; and civil rights policies such as gender discrimination bans, hate-crime laws and same-sex marriage.

They also looked at state abortion restrictions, tax policy, education spending, immigration rules and gun control laws.

Each state was ranked by how liberal or conservative its policies overall have been, going back to 1970.

The researchers then compared these findings to trends in life expectancy in all 50 states.

Montez said the trends they saw were unmistakable. They also correlated with important points in the nation’s political history.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, for example, state life expectancies generally converged. That trend began to reverse in the mid-1980s, around the same time that a conservative movement, led by President Reagan and mirrored in many state capitols, became ascendant.

The gap between states accelerated further after 2010, when sweeping Republican victories in state elections shifted policies further to the right in many places​
.

By 2017, residents of the state with the highest life expectancy — Hawaii — were living on average seven years longer than residents of the state with the lowest life expectancy — Mississippi.​

By contrast, the gap between the best- and worst-performing states in 1984 was less than five years.

The gap is not only about policy: States where people live longer tend to be wealthier and have better educated populations, for example.

But Montez noted that decisions by state leaders have helped shape those factors.

“States like Connecticut are investing in their population, investing in schools, setting an economic floor for their workers, discouraging behaviors like smoking that kill people,” she explained. “You have other states like Mississippi and Oklahoma that aren’t doing any of this.”
​
In Connecticut, whose policies have become steadily more liberal over the last half century, life expectancy increased 5.8 years between 1980 and 2017 to 80.7 years.

In Oklahoma, which has become markedly more conservative, life expectancy increased only 2.2 years over the same period, reaching 75.8 years in 2017.


Identifying which state policies may have the most impact on how long people live is difficult, the researchers concede. But the study points to a group of policies that appear to correlate most closely with longer lives.

These include some unsurprising candidates such as tougher environmental laws, which the authors note may protect people from toxic substances. The authors also found a correlation between longer life expectancy and labor policies that increase economic security, such as a minimum wage.

Tougher gun laws appear to track with longer life expectancies, the study notes, as do stricter tobacco controls.

The authors also point to civil rights laws, which they suggest may protect residents from ill health related to persistent stress.

And they found a correlation between longer life expectancy and better access to abortion, which the study notes may reflect other research that has linked abortion restrictions to women’s poverty and ill health.

more @ source
Click to expand...

Nobody cares
 
Bill said:

Noam N. Levey 10 hrs ago

Weak environmental protections, safety rules and labor and civil rights protections may be cutting lives short in conservative states and deepening the divide between red and blue states, according to a new study on links between life expectancy and state policy.

The report, published Tuesday in the health policy journal Milbank Quarterly, finds that states where residents live longest, including California, tend to have much more stringent environmental laws, tougher tobacco and firearms regulations and more protections for workers, minorities and LGBTQ residents.

Since the mid-1980s, the gap among U.S. states in how long their residents live has widened, reversing decades of progress toward greater equality.

One group of states, mostly in the Northeast and the West, have seen average life expectancies rise relatively steadily, placing them on par with the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Those states tend to have more stringent regulations.

By contrast, the life expectancy in states with more conservative health, labor and social policies — concentrated in the South andAppalachia — have stagnated in recent decades, according to the study, which adds to growing research on health and political disparities between states.

California has among the highest average life expectancies in the country, at 81.3 years. It also had the most liberal policies in the nation in 2014, the most recent year the study analyzed, according to the system the authors developed to rank states.

Although the study's authors note that they can't prove that state policies caused the gap in life expectancy, the correlation is a persistent one across multiple states and several decades.

“It’s disheartening to see another example of a missed opportunity by policymakers,” said David Radley, senior scientist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who studies differences in state health policies and the effects on people’s health. Radley was not involved in Milbank report.

The new report may help shape efforts to rethink government policy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed deep structural weaknesses in the U.S. as well as yawning gaps in many state safety nets.

“The overarching conclusion is clear: States that have invested in their populations’ social and economic well-being by enacting more liberal policies over time tend to be the same states that have made considerable gains in life expectancy,” the study’s authors wrote.

Even before the current public health crisis, life expectancy in the U.S. had been declining, setting America apart from most other wealthy nations. That decline has fueled tough questions about domestic policy.

The opioid epidemic, which has had a devastating impact on regions of the country already hit hard by economic stagnation, has been the focus of a lot of the discussion about that shift.

But Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the new study, said the impact of opioids may be only part of the story.

“When we look at what is happening with life expectancy, the tendency is to focus on individual explanations about what Americans are doing,” she said, noting obesity and smoking behaviors as well as drug use. “But state policies are so important.”

To assess what role these policies may be playing, Montez and other researchers reviewed more than 120 policies enacted by states over the years and assessed whether each policy choice in each state was more liberal or more conservative.

Policies included housing rules such as rent control; health and welfare policies such as Medicaid eligibility and welfare limits; labor protections such as paid sick leave and minimum wages; and civil rights policies such as gender discrimination bans, hate-crime laws and same-sex marriage.

They also looked at state abortion restrictions, tax policy, education spending, immigration rules and gun control laws.

Each state was ranked by how liberal or conservative its policies overall have been, going back to 1970.

The researchers then compared these findings to trends in life expectancy in all 50 states.

Montez said the trends they saw were unmistakable. They also correlated with important points in the nation’s political history.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, for example, state life expectancies generally converged. That trend began to reverse in the mid-1980s, around the same time that a conservative movement, led by President Reagan and mirrored in many state capitols, became ascendant.

The gap between states accelerated further after 2010, when sweeping Republican victories in state elections shifted policies further to the right in many places​
.

By 2017, residents of the state with the highest life expectancy — Hawaii — were living on average seven years longer than residents of the state with the lowest life expectancy — Mississippi.​

By contrast, the gap between the best- and worst-performing states in 1984 was less than five years.

The gap is not only about policy: States where people live longer tend to be wealthier and have better educated populations, for example.

But Montez noted that decisions by state leaders have helped shape those factors.

“States like Connecticut are investing in their population, investing in schools, setting an economic floor for their workers, discouraging behaviors like smoking that kill people,” she explained. “You have other states like Mississippi and Oklahoma that aren’t doing any of this.”
​
In Connecticut, whose policies have become steadily more liberal over the last half century, life expectancy increased 5.8 years between 1980 and 2017 to 80.7 years.

In Oklahoma, which has become markedly more conservative, life expectancy increased only 2.2 years over the same period, reaching 75.8 years in 2017.


Identifying which state policies may have the most impact on how long people live is difficult, the researchers concede. But the study points to a group of policies that appear to correlate most closely with longer lives.

These include some unsurprising candidates such as tougher environmental laws, which the authors note may protect people from toxic substances. The authors also found a correlation between longer life expectancy and labor policies that increase economic security, such as a minimum wage.

Tougher gun laws appear to track with longer life expectancies, the study notes, as do stricter tobacco controls.

The authors also point to civil rights laws, which they suggest may protect residents from ill health related to persistent stress.

And they found a correlation between longer life expectancy and better access to abortion, which the study notes may reflect other research that has linked abortion restrictions to women’s poverty and ill health.

more @ source
Click to expand...

There are a lot of blue-voting blacks in Mississippi.

How do you know it's not the red voters in Hawaii living longer that's causing the higher numbers?

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...trated-in-democratic-congressional-districts/
 
StoneByStone said:
The only way you can say there is more income inequality in the blue states is if you single out the exceptions. If you take all states into consideration, there is no question which states have less inequality as well as more overall living standards.
Click to expand...

Exceptions?!! New York and California are the two most populous blue states in the country and represent easily as much as a quarter or more of the total blue state populations. That makes them the rule, not the exception.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Exceptions?!! New York and California are the two most populous blue states in the country and represent easily as much as a quarter or more of the total blue state populations. That makes them the rule, not the exception.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense. We're not talking about population, we're talking about how these states are run. And even with the inequality issues, New York and California still have higher living standards than most red states.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
to be fair, cawacko isn't crying about California's poverty rate........he is correcting the lies about which states have the highest poverty rate.......
Click to expand...

To be fair, Cawacko is expressing his usual California / blue state angst .. using incorrect "data." The official poverty measure puts California nowhere near the bottom and the SPM measure he's using puts it at 26th, not the bottom.

He and other right-wingers, like YOU, simply don't like the fact that 9 of 10 of the poorest states in the county are led by republicans.
"Nine out of the 10 poorest states are Red states."
meter-mostly-true.jpg

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...mocrat-group-says-9-10-poorest-states-are-re/

Poorest states have Republican legislatures, and richest have Democratic ones
Eighteen of the 19 poorest states have legislatures where both chambers are Republican controlled.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...ates-have-republican-legislatures/1694273002/

AND NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT (97%) of the poorest counties in the nation have been measured in red states.


POLITIFACT - "97 percent of the 100 poorest counties in America are in red states."
meter-mostly-true.jpg

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...e-97-nations-100-poorest-counties-red-states/

Do come again.
 
StoneByStone said:
That doesn't make sense. We're not talking about population, we're talking about how these states are run. And even with the inequality issues, New York and California still have higher living standards than most red states.
Click to expand...

Blue states are run poorly on the whole. Lots of poverty, lots of income inequity. The living standards for those with high pay and the rich are good. Even the middle class average worker is worse off in those states.

COL2019AnnualAvg_0.jpg


Because the cost of living in those states is uniformly higher--often much higher--the average person ends up with less. They pay more in taxes, have less in housing, and have to manage a budget that has less in it for extras like entertainment or luxuries. That high cost of living doesn't impact The Rich. They don't particularly care.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Blue states are run poorly on the whole. Lots of poverty, lots of income inequity. The living standards for those with high pay and the rich are good. Even the middle class average worker is worse off in those states.

COL2019AnnualAvg_0.jpg


Because the cost of living in those states is uniformly higher--often much higher--the average person ends up with less. They pay more in taxes, have less in housing, and have to manage a budget that has less in it for extras like entertainment or luxuries. That high cost of living doesn't impact The Rich. They don't particularly care.
Click to expand...

https://www.homesnacks.net/these-are-the-10-best-states-to-live-in-america-123067/
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Blue states are run poorly on the whole. Lots of poverty, lots of income inequity. The living standards for those with high pay and the rich are good. Even the middle class average worker is worse off in those states.

COL2019AnnualAvg_0.jpg


Because the cost of living in those states is uniformly higher--often much higher--the average person ends up with less. They pay more in taxes, have less in housing, and have to manage a budget that has less in it for extras like entertainment or luxuries. That high cost of living doesn't impact The Rich. They don't particularly care.
Click to expand...


republican states are shithole states... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate
 
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