A new study took a look at the health ramifications of
working at a job with sustained low wages.
And it shouldn't surprise you that it does not bode well for your health.
This is new research that's been done by Columbia University Mailman School of
Public Health.
And here's what they found.
Our research provides new evidence that sustained exposure to low wages during
peak earning years is associated with accelerated memory decline later in life.
This association was observed in our primary sample,
as well as a validation cohort.
And that is the lead researcher speaking to Vice News
about the study that they've done.
Now, to be sure there's very little research on the relationship between low
wages and health.
So the researchers looked at other studies, including a Michigan university
health and retirement study, and interview participants born and
then they interviewed participants born between 1936 and 1941 and
here's what they found for every 10 years.
People with sustained low wages,
experienced an extra year's worth of cognitive decline.
Okay, so low household income in middle ages connected to higher
incident dementia, dementia-related death,
cognitive function, and subjective cognitive decline.
And really when you think about it, when you think about the stress associated
with not having the means necessary to afford the bare minimum,
just the bare essentials to survive,
you can understand how this could impact your health.
So the researchers say this.
Our findings suggest that individuals with sustained exposure to low wages,
experienced a little more than one excess year of aging per 10 year period.
In other words, the amount of cognitive aging experienced over a 10 year
period by individuals with a history of sustained low wage employment would be
what those who never earned low wages experienced in approximately 11 years.
And here's why.
Low skill or low wage jobs can impose health risks,
some of which include exposure to toxic chemicals or toxic injuries,
work-related stress, along with health outcomes like depressive symptoms,
obesity and hypertension, which all accelerate cognitive decline.
Emma, we know what stress does to our bodies, right?
We know what happens when cortisol spikes and
we all of a sudden start eating poorly.
Like it has a real physical impact on your body.
And so this doesn't shock me at all.
But the real question is, will anyone actually take this to heart or
learn anything from it?
>> I mean, I was just getting so sad when you were reading some of that
stuff because this is what happens when we commodify healthcare.
And there are always people in this country who are going to be because
we live in a dog eat dog capitalist system here.
And we have very few social institutions that help people that are going to be
working low wage jobs and not low skill jobs, right?
And that's important to qualify because everything is a skill.
And I think that there's this highfalutin perception that
white collar workers have of themselves.
[LAUGH] Only I could do this, right?
Yeah I mean, I'd love to see you try to make it on three minimum wage jobs,
because because this country does not provide anything for its citizenry.
But regardless, right?
The stress in and of itself of course is going to cause health outcomes,
negative health outcomes, I should say.
But even just the pure fact that when health care is a commodity and
these gig jobs that apps are trying to impose on people don't have
healthcare included, you're not gonna go to the doctor as much.
You're gonna be way more stress, working these jobs in situations where there's
fewer regulations, maybe you're breathing in toxic fumes.
And so it compounds on itself.
And then say you have a health issue or diabetes or
something that causes you to spiral healthwise.
Then this society, this 66 society looks at you and goes, ha ha,
that's your fault, right?
Maybe you shouldn't have been so poor.
Maybe you should have been smarter.
Because we pretend like intelligence isn't largely a social
construct when you control for how wealthy someone is growing up etc.
So, to me this story is just so indicative of so
many of the problems that we have in our country.
>> One of my favorite books, I think about it a lot was written by
Barbara Ehrenreich, it's called Bright Sided.
And the reason why I'm thinking about that right now is because what you're
saying focuses on the age old talking point of personal responsibility, right?
If you're suffering in any way, it's your fault.
Personal responsibility.
And Bright Sided specifically focuses on,
the motivation gurus and the positivity gurus.
Like if you think positively great things will happen for you and
it's just more of that, we're putting the onus on you,
good things aren't happening in your life because you're not positive enough, right?
That garbage.
And when it comes, >> You didn't read the secret.
You didn't read the secret, you didn't manifest.
>> Right, just total garbage.
Because again, it's very intentional.
It's meant to distract us.
It's meant to force us to focus on us as if we're the problem when in
reality we're functioning under a system that is meant to do what,
maximize profits for shareholders, maximize profits for investors,
maximize profits for the corporate CEO, that is what the system entails.
There is a fiduciary responsibility for
these corporations to return to provide a return on investment.
That is it.
That is how this that's how this machine works, right?
And so it doesn't surprise me at all that they will maximize profit to
the detriment of their own employees.
They don't see employees as people, they are conditioned to see them as anything,
but really they they see their employees as a massive cost.
It's a necessary cost, but they try to think of ways to cut down on that cost and
we see it played out in different ways, certainly through incredibly low wages,
poor working conditions.
That's why finally we're starting to see more momentum with workers organizing
their workplaces and unionizing places like Starbucks for instance,
which of course the corporate ceos over at Starbucks are not too happy about.
But that that's great because it's it's important for
labor to have a say in regard to their working conditions and their pay.
But when you're giving your points, Emma, I couldn't help but also think about
how even when it comes to something that's not related to corporate profits,
when it's something related to, let's say a pandemic, right?
You hear the same talking points about like it's not really a big deal.
If you die, it's your fault because you have comorbidities, it's your fault,
it's your fault.
It's we can't do anything in in a collectivist way to keep people safe.
We we wouldn't dare do that.
And if you get sick and you die, it's your fault.
You have poverty is a moral failing.
And like poverty doesn't just show itself in your bank account.
It shows itself and all the ramifications of poverty in the United States and
those are multifaceted and they're easy to to I guess,
ascribe to moral characteristics about your own choices.
But we all know that we live in a society and that's not the reality