Poverty and Health

Mae Braddock: Howard's fever was getting worse and then Rosy started to sneeze.
Jim Braddock: Where are they, Mae?
Mae Braddock: Jim, we can't even keep them warm.
Jim Braddock: Where are the kids?
Mae Braddock: The boys will sleep on the sofa at my father's in Brooklyn. And Rosy will stay at my sister's. Jimmy, we can't keep them.
Jim Braddock: You don't make decisions about our children without me.
Mae Braddock: What if they really get sick? We already owe Dr McDonald...
--Cinderella Man

It does not take an 'expert' to understand that the most important factor in explaining collective health of a population is standard of living. Standard of living improves from voluntary production and trade (capitalism). As production and trade increase, more resources are generated that enable greater prosperity and healthier lifestyles.

Collective measures of health, such as average life expectancy, are strongly correlated to per capita income over time.

And, although I am not a researcher in the public health space, I'm certain that there voluminous studies that focus on the bottom end of the relationship--that people with lower incomes are generally less healthy. The higher the poverty level of a society, the lower the collective health.

One of the many ironies arising from the COVID situation is that leftists digging in their heels in favor of extended lockdowns--regulations that reduce prosperity because they restrict voluntary production and trade--are the same people who, at other times, claim that income redistribution policies are necessary to improve the health of the poor.

By extending lockdown periods, leftists are creating poverty that they claim to despise.

Today, the headline unemployment rate hit nearly 15%, while the U6 number (which includes discouraged workers) ticked 23%. These levels, which likely under-report true degree of unemployment, were last touched in the Great Depression.

US Unemployment Rate moves up to 14.7%.

The peak % in prior recessions...
2007-09: 10.0%
2001: 6.3%
1990-1991: 7.8%
1981-1982: 10.8%
1973-75: 9.0%
1969-70: 6.1%
1960-61: 7.1%
1957-58: 7.5%
1953-54: 6.1%
1948-49: 7.9% pic.twitter.com/5VuZB958WV

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) May 8, 2020

The adverse effects associated with forcing (literally) people into conditions of economic weakness will surely dwarf the near term ill effects of the coronavirus itself.