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  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Anger over economic inequality and its effects is an important theme running

  • through our national politics in both parties now.

  • But just how you gauge the true impacts of inequality on health and happiness is a bit

  • more nuanced than you might think.

  • Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, dives into some of those distinctions.

  • It's part of our weekly segment, Making Sense.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: As a record number of private jets descended on Davos last month for the

  • World Economic Forum, the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam released its annual inequality statistics.

  • According to Oxfam, the 26 richest people on Earth, just over the seating capacity of

  • the Bombardier 7500, have the same net worth as the poorest half of the world's population,

  • some 3.8 billion people.

  • But a major discovery of medical research in recent years has been that inequality doesn't

  • just weigh on those below.

  • RICHARD WILKINSON, Epidemiologist: The biggest effects are on the poor, but the vast majority

  • of the population does less well if they're in a more unequal society.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett document this claim in their

  • latest book, "The Inner Level."

  • Yes, economic growth drives greater contentment, happiness, but only to a point.

  • KATE PICKETT, Epidemiologist: In the rich, developed world, economic growth is no longer

  • buying us gains in health and happiness.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: And so, as poor countries get richer...

  • KATE PICKETT: Things get better.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: And then, if you have inequality or increasing inequality in that country,

  • then you're going...

  • KATE PICKETT: You will not be doing as well as the other rich countries.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: It's the difference between the U.S. and Scandinavia, says Pickett.

  • KATE PICKETT: If you and I have equal education, the same incomes, the same wealth, the same

  • social class, if you live in a more equal society than I do, you are more likely to

  • live longer, your children to be healthier, less likely to do drugs or drop out of school.

  • Everything about your world is going to be better

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Consider mental illness, which Pickett and Wilkinson first linked to inequality

  • a decade ago.

  • KATE PICKETT: Since then, I think we're seeing an epidemic of mental illness in the most

  • unequal rich, developed countries, about 80 percent of our young people feeling incredibly

  • stressed, many of them suicidal, many of them hurting themselves.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: And, of course, it's not just the young, says Pickett's husband.

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: In Britain, three-quarters of the population feel overwhelmed by stress

  • and unable to cope.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Three-quarters?

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: Three-quarters.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: This is a large sample?

  • KATE PICKETT: Yes.

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: Yes, yes, from the Mental Health Foundation.

  • A third of the population have had suicidal thoughts in the last year.

  • And the figures in the U.S. are pretty similar.

  • About 20 percent of your population have diagnosable mental illness at any one time.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: How does it work?

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: So we judge each other more by status in a more unequal society.

  • And with that goes more worries about how we are seen and judged.

  • KATE PICKETT: The effects are biggest among the poor.

  • But they go right across to the top 10th, 10 percent of the income distribution.

  • It affects our physiology, our hormones, the way we think, the way we behave.

  • And those changes have been linked to a range of mental illnesses that we know are related

  • to income inequality.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: According to GoodRx.com, depression and anxiety prescriptions are on the rise

  • in the U.S., and they track income very closely.

  • NARRATOR: Even when you're taking an antidepressant, you may still be struggling with depression.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, richer people can afford more antidepressants and the like.

  • But the well-off sure do consume a lot of them.

  • And if depression isn't the functional definition of unhappiness, what is?

  • After all, I asked economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, doesn't everyone know

  • that more money doesn't make you happier?

  • You hear it everywhere.

  • After about $70,000 a year of household income -- maybe it's a little more in San Francisco

  • or something -- people are no happier making more than that than the people who make that

  • amount.

  • True?

  • No?

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS, University of Michigan: It's a truism, but it's false.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Wolfers cautions that Wilkinson and Pickett have taken the inequality argument

  • too far.

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS: Rich people are happier than poor people, and that's true all the way along

  • the income distribution.

  • People earning half-a-million are happier than those earning a quarter-of-a-million,

  • happier than people earning $100,000, happier than people earning $50,000, all the way.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Now, wait a minute.

  • What about 40 years worth of happiness research on lottery winners, going back to a widely

  • trumpeted 1978 study?

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS: So that original study was a study of, I think, 30 lottery winners.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Actually, just 22 lottery winners.

  • But a much more recent study tracked hundreds of lottery winners in Sweden.

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS: It turns out that folks who won big lotteries are much happier than folks

  • who won smaller lotteries, are much happier than folks who won no lottery whatsoever.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Just as their cats may be, as this Swedish lottery ad suggests.

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS: So it turns out, big bump in income, big bump in happiness.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: The Pickett-Wilkinson response?

  • Don't put too much stock into self-rated health and happiness reports.

  • KATE PICKETT: So the United States has a very high level of good self-rated health.

  • About 80 percent of Americans say their health is great.

  • But their life expectancy is at the bottom of the international league table among the

  • developed countries.

  • Now, Japan, which has the highest life expectancy in the world, people live there longer than

  • anywhere else, only about half of them think their health is good.

  • So there's a complete mismatch between subjective and objective measures when it comes to health.

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: So you have to be very careful with that data.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: So when people report greater subjective happiness as a function of having

  • greater wealth, are they kidding themselves?

  • KATE PICKETT: No, they're not kidding themselves, but we find that these things are related

  • to inequality.

  • So you're much more likely to say that you are fabulous if you live in a more unequal

  • society.

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: So, do you think you're a better driver than most Americans?

  • PAUL SOLMAN: I actually think I'm worse.

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: Do you think your I.Q. is higher?

  • Do you think you're more attractive?

  • Do you think you're more generous?

  • PAUL SOLMAN: So, you think that the reason that -- I can't remember the percentage, but

  • 70, 80 percent of Americans think that they're, I think, much better than average drivers...

  • KATE PICKETT: Ninety-six percent.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: Ninety-six percent think they're better than average.

  • OK.

  • KATE PICKETT: In Sweden, it's 66 percent.

  • That is strongly linked to income inequality.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: In the end, though, while the two couples disagree about the effects of

  • wealth on happiness, they're on the same page regarding inequality.

  • That's because, says Betsey Stevenson:

  • BETSEY STEVENSON, Economist: Increases in income keep making you happier, but they're

  • making you happier at a decreasing rate.

  • It's just that that rate never goes to zero.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: I see.

  • BETSEY STEVENSON: And that's an idea of diminishing returns, right?

  • If I'm looking at a millionaire, to get the same boost in happiness for them, I'm going

  • to need a lot more dollars than for somebody who is pretty low-income, because the relationship

  • is with a percentage change.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, say these liberal economists, you can give one millionaire 10

  • percent more money to make him or her 10 percent happier, or you can divvy up that $100,000

  • among lower-income people to make each of them 10 percent happier.

  • JUSTIN WOLFERS: Paul, you may have just found the logic of redistribution, right?

  • Take someone from a million to 1.1, take that $100,000 and find 20 people on $50,000, move

  • them from $50,000, to 55,000, you have made 20 people get the same boost in happiness.

  • BETSEY STEVENSON: So, we have sacrificed one person with one decrease in happiness that's

  • been offset by an increase in happiness that's 20 times the size.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: And if redistribution doesn't happen and inequality continues to grow?

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: If that whole society becomes very unequal, happiness and measures of well-being

  • will decline.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: And that's the essence of what you're saying?

  • RICHARD WILKINSON: Yes.

  • PAUL SOLMAN: For the "PBS NewsHour," this is economics correspondent Paul Solman.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anger over economic inequality and its effects is an important theme running

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經濟不平等如何影響社會的福祉? (How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being)

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    Yi-Jen Chang 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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