How do you sleep at night? If you’re rich, the answer is probably “really well”. Research compiled by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that there’s a correlation between how much money you make and how much sleep you get. To no one’s surprise, Americans who make less money aren’t getting as much sleep as the wealthy.
If you’re in a family of four living below the poverty line (which means you took in less than $US23,550 in 2013) you’re probably sleeping poorly compared with friends and neighbours who earn more. About 35 per cent of people in that group got less than six hours sleep per night. Contrast that with a family of four that brings in $US94,000 per year. Only 25 per cent of people in that group got less than six hours of sleep per night.
And it doesn’t matter if you live in a huge city with the sound of emergency vehicles screaming by, or a shack in the woods with birds softly tweeting. The amount of money your family was taking in was the thing that determined whether you got a lot of sleep or a little.
As the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog points out, much of this discrepancy can be directly blamed on the number of jobs that lower income families have to work just to get by. Money can’t buy happiness, but apparently it can buy some extra Z’s.
Picture: Getty