cyclical increases in income may raise mortality, even when the long-run effects of income are in the opposite direction. There … is no evidence that recent increases in inequality raised mortality beyond what it would otherwise have been …

We investigate age-specific mortality in Britain and the United States since 1950. Neither trends in income nor in … patterns of mortality decline. Patterns of income inequality were similar in both countries, but adult and elderly mortality … rates declined most rapidly during the period when inequality increased. Changes in the rate of mortality decline in the US …