Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Dead on Payday
I have no idea why this captivates me, but apparently it’s true. People die on payday. A lot. From the Marginal Revolution blog, which posted the summary of a study that can be found here:
In this paper, we study the short-run effect of salary receipt on mortality among Swedish public sector employees…We find a dramatic increase in mortality on the day salaries arrive. The increase is especially pronounced for younger workers and for deaths due to activity-related causes such as heart conditions and strokes. Additionally, the effect is entirely driven by an increase in mortality among low income individuals, who are more likely to experience liquidity constraints. All things considered, our results suggest that an increase in general economic activity upon salary receipt is an important cause of the excess mortality.
People get paid. They spend. They die.
I guess this makes sense. If I’m parsing the academic-speak properly, “increase in general economic activity” means “spending money.” People who are “more likely to experience liquidity constraints” are what we might call “broke.” So what I want to know is, what are they spending it on? It seems depressing to imagine that someone gets his or her paycheck, sits at the kitchen table, pays the rent and the gas bill, maybe makes a credit card payment, and then keels over.
I prefer to think that these people are dying on some kind of payday-fueled bender.
On the other hand, we’ve all felt that incredible rush of relief and happiness when we know there’s money in the bank. Sliding a check into the ATM or checking your balance and seeing it full and fat is one of the most restorative and healing experiences around. So maybe it’s a little bit like when you get sick only after you’ve been through a stressful or challenging period — when your body relaxes a bit and “allows” itself to get ill. With paycheck in hand, troubles momentarily subsided, wolf at bay, the human body seems to decide, okay, now’s the time to check out.
And yes, I know they’re Swedes, but it does seem to have the ring of universal truth, doesn’t it?
Published in General
So, by keeping unemployment rates high, Obama’s economic policies may be saving lives?
My grandfather died on his payday but the statistician in me questions the assumption. Consider that approximately 6,600 people die per day in the United States. How many are over 65 and on Social Security? So those 6,600 who died on the third day of the month are payday casualties?
Seems simple enough to me. After working one’s butt off all week, they get their paycheck, see how much the government and others have taken from them, how little they have left and blow a gasket. Case closed.
And their last word is, “FICA!!!!”
This was a study of public sector employees. Paying them is bad for them, so we should stop doing that, and everybody will be better off.
They can’t argue with that. There is a study – it’s science!
How many of them were actually murdered for their paychecks, with the murder made to look like a heart attack or stroke? Follow the money (to the spouse’s purse).
Or, if you don’t like that one: How many of these “young men” died in the arms of an even younger hooker (it is payday, after all), having forgotten to check with his doctor to see if he was healthy enough for sex, as he was warned to do by the Viagra adverts?
Lives saved or created by the stimulus.
I was thinking it was like this:
“Payday! Party!”
“Here hold my beer, Watch This!!”
And the last words heard by that guy, as he plunges to his death, are: “You’re doin’, man! You’re doin’ it!”
In Sweden, someone in Rob’s bracket would pay 60% of his pay in payroll and income taxes. His employer would pay another 31.4%. Top that all off with a 25% sales/VAT tax.
To quote the Swede who looks at his paycheck and gasps: “You’re killing me.”
Yet their top corprate income tax rate is 22%.
I think we should get Ricochet free to protect Rob’s health.
In my youth (father William replied to his son) living paycheck to paycheck was indeed a liquidity constraint, i.e. when Friday evening came the liquids flowed much more freely.
So I vote for the payday-fueled bender.