Above: "Done In," an aquatint etching by Frank Ominsky (1898-1991), created while he was in the WPA, between 1935 and 1943. Image from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How the rich are killing the working-class and poor
In America, being working-class, and especially being poor, means an early death. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders explains, "Being poor or working class in America is a death sentence... For example, if you live in McDowell County, West Virginia, where the median household income is just $27,682 a year, you can expect to live 69 years. Meanwhile, just 350 miles away in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the median income is $142,299, life expectancy is 84 years - a 15-year gap. Why? It’s simple. Day after day, the struggle just to survive takes a horrific toll on a person’s body and mind. Financial stress kills" ("Why Do Working People Die Younger Than the Wealthy?" Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator for Vermont, April 2, 2025).
There are some wealthy Americans who want to improve the lives of the working-class and poor (for example, the Patriotic Millionaires). But a much higher percentage of the wealthy couldn't care less - they just want to avoid taxation at all costs, even if it means that an awful lot of people are going to die. In the research study, "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans" (Perspective on Politics, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2013), we see that "a solid majority of the public (59 percent), but only a minority of the wealthy (41 percent), said they would be “willing to pay more taxes in order to provide health coverage for everyone" (p. 58) and further, the "wealthy are much more favorable toward cutting social welfare programs, especially Social Security and health care" (p. 67).
(I'm skeptical of the 41 percent of rich Americans who say they'd be willing to pay more in taxes "to provide health coverage for everyone." First of all, how many responded that way just to appear like a good person to the survey-taker - i.e., not wanting to look like Ebenezer Scrooge. And second, how much more are they willing to pay - 20% more, or just 2%?)
These findings mesh with other things we know about wealthy Americans, such as their tendency to have less empathy and give less to charity. So, if it comes down to your life vs. their sustainable luxury and dynastic wealth, well, you might want to get your affairs in order.
So, how are the rich killing us? Here are six major ways:
1. Withholding healthcare: A 2019 study by Gallup and West Health found that "More than 13% of American adults--or about 34 million people--report knowing of at least one friend or family member in the past five years who died after not receiving needed medical treatment because they were unable to pay for it." The Patriotic Millionaires have noted, "some in America’s healthcare system are earning millions a day and becoming billionaires by denying care to certain patients..." This is reminiscent of the Nazi's Aktion T4 program, where those who were considered "life unworthy of life" were killed off for economic (and other) reasons. And it's important to remember that the Nazi's didn't always use violence to kill, they also killed by withholding food and medical care. Yep, we're doing the exact same thing here... in good ol' "Christian" U.S.A.
2. Controlling politicians and ordering them to stop "Medicare for All": Even though "Medicare for All" would save loads of money (in large part because it would stop the flow of money to wealthy investors and executives) and save over 114,000 lives per year, the rich--and their political marionettes--would rather let those 114,000 die (again, every year). Many wealthy Americans want to keep the healthcare cash cow going, lives be damned.
3. Slow-walking renewable energy: Wealthy Americans are also using their political leverage to block, or at least slow-walk the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy. This is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. This is similar to--but not (yet) up to the level of--cigarette sales, where the wealthy know it's killing hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, but they keep the industry going anyway, in order to secure more wealth and luxury for themselves and their children. It's a dynastic wealth industry built upon culturally-accepted homicide.
4. Financial stress and deaths of despair: Through job off-shoring, wage stagnation, usury, medical debt, and other methods, the wealthy are putting lower-income groups through a type of financial persecution - and this persecution has been shown to fuel deaths of despair, such as suicides and opioid overdoses (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here).
5. Killing the elderly in nursing homes by reducing staffing: Private equity firms are taking over nursing homes, reducing staffing to increase profits, and this is causing increased death rates. So complacent are we--or so enamored by wealth and our holy "Job Creators"--that we are letting the rich abuse our parents and grandparents. We should be ashamed of ourselves. (For more on this problem, see here, here, and here.)
6. Tax cuts, evasion, and avoidance: The rich use all sorts of schemes to reduce their taxes - buying politicians (and thus, public policy); hiding money in foreign accounts; utilizing teams of lawyers to look for any loopholes; and distracting the working-class with culture wars (the Fox News business model). These schemes reduce revenue that could be used to improve public health, and it also shifts the revenue burden on to the working-class and poor (e.g., instead of more progressive income taxes, we get more regressive sales taxes). (See, e.g., "Inequality and poverty: the hidden costs of tax dodging," Oxfam International, accessed August 19, 2026; and also "Who Pays? 7th Edition," Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, accessed August 20, 2026).
The six items above, and more, are causing premature deaths for the working-class and poor - by the millions. But here's the thing: This mass murder has been normalized, institutionalized, and systematized to such a degree, that the majority of us don't even think about it; or, if we do, we just sorta shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, it's just the way it is." We don't seem to have much fight left in us, like cattle lined up at the slaughterhouse.
We need a New Deal for our lifespan.
"It is shocking and unacceptable that in the United States in 2025, poverty steals almost a decade of older Americans’ lives. Millions of older Americans who worked hard and played by the rules are dying early simply because they don’t have sufficient financial resources."
--Ramsey Alwin, President and CEO, National Council on Aging, in "Analysis Finds Low-Income Older Adults Die Nine Years Earlier than Wealthier Peers," National Council on Aging, October 7, 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment