Health statistics among low-income people tell the story. They were three times as likely to be limited by chronic conditions. And they die younger, too. Men who earn a lower income are twice as likely to die from lung cancer and heart disease than those with a higher income. Women with diabetes who earn a lower income are three times as likely to die from diabetes than women with a higher income.
Statistics show, too, that there is a high correlation between health and education.
For adults with chronic diseases, communicable diseases and injuries, the death rate falls as education rises. The picture for children is just as desperate. Children in poor families are seven times as likely to have been exposed to lead-based paint, which puts them at risk for mental and physical disabilities. Children in lower-income families, too, are less likely to be vaccinated than those above the poverty level and twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma. It is recognized that to support an individual's efforts to move off of welfare and into the work world, programs need to include more than job training.