Since the publication in 1980 of the Black Report, Inequalities in Health, critics have attempted to challenge its finding that for nearly all adult male and female age groups in Britain, inequalities in mortality between occupational class groups have widened during recent decades. This article seeks to refute one of the critics, using data published during the 1980s, and goes on to point out that if, as the Black Report also argued, material deprivation is the predominant scientific explanation for inequalities in mortality, then it is widening living standards between classes that we must examine to understand the trend.