Photo credit: Ivan Oboleninov from Pexels
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
This fascinating article in The Ne York Times reports on a new study by economists showing that those who sleep more have higher salaries. The study correlated incomes with the earlier sunset times in the eastern end of a time zone compared to the western end, e.g., Boston, Massachusetts vs. Ann Arbor, Michigan, where there’s about a 50 minute difference between sunset times.
I wonder if another factor might be at work. Those who earn more can afford to live in quieter neighborhoods. Those who earn less can’t afford to do that. In fact, a study done by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that noise pollution was worse in poor and minority communities.
Might the researchers have mixed up cause and effect? Probably not, because according to the report they looked at average incomes in the different areas in the same time zone.
But one does have to wonder.
