The measurement of income is more complex than assessing educational attainment.

Survey-
based questions inquiring about income must minimally specify the following components:
(a) time frame—for example monthly, annually, or over a lifetime (in general, the shorter the
time frame for the assessment of income, the greater the measurement error); (b) sources,
such as wages and salary, self-employment income, rent, interest and dividends, pensions and
social security, unemployment benefits, alimony and near-cash sources such as food stamps;
(c) unit of measurement, that is, whether income is assessed for the individual or the
household (with appropriate adjustments for household size in the latter case); and (d)
whether it is gross or disposable income (i.e., taking account of taxes and transfer payments).
In addition to the higher rate of measurement error for income (as compared to educational
attainment), this variable also is associated with higher refusal rates in surveys that are
administered to the general population.
As with education, an extensive literature has documented the association between income
and health. For example, even after controlling for educational attainment and occupational
status, post-tax family income was associated with a 3.6-fold mortality risk among working-
age adults in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, comparing the top (>$70,000 in 1984
dollars) to the bottom (<$15,000) categories of income (Duncan et al., 2002). The association
between income and mortality also has been described as a “gradient” (Adler et al., 1994).
That is, the excess risks of poor health are not confined simply to individuals below the
official poverty threshold of income. Rather, an individual’s chances of having good health
(e.g., avoiding premature mortality) improve with each incremental rise in income (although
the relationship is also steepest at lower levels of income and tends to flatten out beyond
incomes that are about twice the median level).
Also, as with education, the causal direction of an association between income and health
does not entirely run from income → health. That is, the relationship between the two
variables is acknowledged to be dynamic and reciprocal. Ill health is a potent cause of job loss
and reduction in income. Indeed, income as an indicator of SES is more susceptible to reverse
causation than education, which tends to be completed in early adult life prior to the onset of
major causes of morbidity and functional limitations.
Nonetheless, tests of the income/health relationship in different datasets suggest that lower
income is likely to be a cause of worse health status. For example, children do not normally
contribute to household incomes, yet their health is strongly associated with levels of
household income in both the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Health
Interview Surveys (Case et al., 2002). Furthermore, the adverse health effects of lower income
accumulate over children’s lives, so that the relationship between income and children’s
health becomes more pronounced as children grow older (Case et al., 2002).