Angus deaton

Less than a bachelor’s degree

Bachelor’s degree or more

40

50

60

70

Age

40

30

30

50

60

70

Age

1980–82

1960–62

1950–52

1940–42

1970–72

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ANNE CASE and ANGUS DEATON 

421

II.A.  Contemporaneous Evidence

For middle-aged whites, there is a strong correlation between median 

real household income per person and mortality from 1980 and 2015; an 

inverse U-shaped pattern of real income, rising throughout the 1980s and 

1990s and falling thereafter, matches the U-shape of mortality, which fell 

until 1998 and rose thereafter. After 1990, we can separate out His panics 

and look at WNHs, for whom the recent mortality experience was worse 

than for whites as a whole. The top panel of figure 14 shows, for households 

headed by WNHs age 50–54, real median household income per member 

from March supplements of the Current Population Survey (presented 

as solid lines), and (unadjusted all-cause) mortality rates for men and 

Figure 14. 

All-Cause Mortality and Median Household Income per Member  

for White Non-Hispanics, 1990–2015

Sources: National Vital Statistics System; Current Population Survey, March supplement; authors’ calculations. 

Deaths per 100,000

Deaths per 100,000