Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.

That finding was reported Monday by two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case. Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.

The analysis by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found.

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html


In another study it names depression probably brought on by economic factors...among other problems.

While money woes definitely contribute to stress and poor mental health, it can be devastating to those already prone to depression -- and depression is indeed still the number one risk factor for suicide. A person with no hope and nowhere to go, can now easily turn to their prescription painkiller and overdose, bringing the pain, stress and worry to an end. In fact, prescription painkillers were the third leading cause of suicide (and rising rapidly) for middle aged Americans in 2010 (guns (link is external) are still number 1)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201305/white-middle-age-suicide-in-america-skyrockets

Which often leads to substance abuse.

So we're right back to were Sanders started. So...not a whole different conclusion at all.

are easy to find. They are in the pockets of the bank$ter/donors, by virtue of the policies of the past 8 years.

Yeah. Puzzled. I bet.

Quick, fast money in one era will undoubtedly affect a generation down the road. And we are now at that point in time when we can see the full effect of fast and furious economic increases that rely on bubbles, or its other empty cousin, the trickle down policy.

We have to come up with a better, long-term plan.

I listen to the police radio and its alarming the number of suicide calls they are getting. This is the country, and I hate to imagine how many calls they ate getting in the cities. I wonder if there is any difference in republican controlled areas vs blue areas?

Mt 54 year old son was laid off, ran out of unemployment benefits, moved in with me (I am 80) Told he could not receive any more food stamps after 6 months, and the unemployment extension was cancelled thanks to the repub, governor. Just got a temp. job sorting french fries for $12.00/hr. He msde $25 at his regular job. Both our bank accounts are exhausted. He threatenes suicide, the police are alerted via his Facebook friends. He was taken to the hospital, has no insurance, no funds, and they send him a bill. His 17 year old cat is ill and neither of us can afford to have her put to sleep. Greatest country in the world? Not from where we are.

I appreciate it.

It won't be much but at this point it looks like anything will help. PM me if you like. I can't. I don't have enough internet points.

please call around to vets, humane societies, and shelters. someone is very likely to do a compassionate euthanasia if you cannot afford it. animal care professionals do not want to see animals suffer and will often intervene in an emergency situation or when the animal is desperately ill. prayers for your kitty

I offer what little I can send.


I spent the years since 2010 being broken down and thought of suicide more than once. Things finally started to turn last November and the slow rebuild is actually happening.

But I understand despair. I have lived in its basement many months, years...even.

((hugs))

Just try to hang in there daily as things can get better. But I too worry about my kids. They ate barely surviving snd it seems like like some new money needing disaster is around every corner.
It seems like there is a feeling of fear, dread, and hopelessness across the land.
I truly feel that this is the plan. I think our rich overlords know that the earth can't sustain us all and have purposefully created a world in which all but the rich die off. They seem to be eagerly trying to divide all the wealth between them as they push us to dispair
and death.
Yet there are still a few good people out there that gives me some hope so dont give up yet.

I really do believe that their plan is to thin the herd. Things will continue to get harder and harder.

and not just suicides. You've seen how they've handled young black men in this country. Cut funding to schools, load them up and incarcerate them in for-profit prisons. The 1% really does not discriminate - they just take the money and run. They could care less about the fall-out.

I work serving a lot of rural poor underserved people in healthcare. Job and education opportunities suck. Great deal of prescription and non precription drug abuse. Overdoses. Suicide. Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Insomnia. Disability. Dependency.

It all goes back to lack of easy access to education and poor job prospects. Then it becomes ingrained poor people culture who become the perpetuator of the crime that has been perpetrated toward them.

Bernie is going after the heart of the matter.

Lack of: education, opportunity, economic security, health security.

All due to a rigged system.

It is easy to ignore in suburbs and gated communities.

But in the inner city and rural areas these problems are rampant.

Remember, they are playing on the easy setting and deep inside they know it.

FIL committed suicide a few years ago and he was about 50 something. Unemployed too.

If Bernie Sanders were not running for President, how much of an issue do you think income
inequality would be in the 2016 election cycle? Bernie is primary reason this is even being
so widely discussed. True to form, Bernie was way ahead of the curve, pointing to issues
that the Establishment would just as soon we ignore.

Of course, once Bernie put this isaue in the national spotlight, all the other Dem candidates -- seeing
Bernie's HUGE crowds -- started decrying income inequality as well, without even bothering to
re-phrase it, so as to not be so obvious.

Go Bernie!!

Thanks for the thread, UglyGreed.

Last edited Thu Nov 5, 2015, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)

around the world of middle-aged and younger men have been well-documented as d/t poverty, hopelessness in their ability to provide for their families and not being able to see a future where things will improve. Austerity may not have come to NA 'yet' as we've seen it in those places, but the direct effects of many of those same feelings are already being felt, imo.