Ok, I read the article. But I still don't know what the big lie is.
I think the big lie is that wellness companies, doctors, and sleep widget salespeople claim that you can improve your sleep with blackout curtains, less screen time, exercise, fancy tech, and a host of other strategies. But this article is saying that being healthier and richer improve your sleep more dramatically, and those are things that are not directly in your control.
It may be less effective trying to become rich or healthier without improving one's sleep schedule. Besides, the article says:
> Americans with sleep disorders earn an average of $2,500 less each year than their well-rested peers.
And 2.5k gross per annum is not a large gap to bridge. Imagine getting a $1k promotion and spending $125 less on something each month — is your sleep automatically fixed? No, it's a ridiculous idea. There is much more control we have over our sleep schedules (most of the people, there are exceptions) than our economic situation does.
People just need to take responsibility for their own actions. Being economically not as well off as someone else is just a convenient scape-goat. There will always be people richer than any other given person. That doesn't mean this given person is now barred from having a healthy sleep schedule.
While the correlation may exist, and even some small degree of causation, it is ridiculous to think that $2.5k per year extra will somehow give anyone more sleep, unless that money (after tax) is specifically going towards sleep treatments. But I think maybe less than 1% of all Americans at any given point are saving up for sleep treatments which are kept just very barely out of reach by their income. And very few Americans are in other such contrived scenarios where they really need that $2.5k to sleep well.