
Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair - enraged_camel
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-18/young-white-america-is-haunted-by-a-crisis-of-despair
======
irrational
I worry about this for my oldest son. He has dyspraxia and apraxia. In
practice that means he has difficulty with memory (at 15 he still doesn't know
his multiplication tables) and putting things in order (such as speaking - you
have to put phonemes, words, sentences together in order to speak). But, he
doesn't look like he has a disability and he doesn't speak much so people
don't readily realize he doesn't talk like other people. There are people who
know him for years without realizing there is anything "wrong" with him.
Unfortunately there is no way he will be able to go to college. He is
basically flunking middle school despite putting forth his best effort because
he simply can't remember anything and can't put things in order to respond to
questions or write things down. However they will basically pass him since
they have documentation that he has a disability. He will get a high school
diploma because if you have a documented disability and attend public school
they will basically just give you a diploma if you at least show up. College,
obviously, doesn't work the same way. I'm not really sure what will become of
him. I'm not sure he could hack a trade. He could do manual labor, but that
doesn't really pay well enough to live on your own, at least where we live.
I'm afraid he will end up with the problems outlined in this article.

~~~
sbardle
I went to a school where a number of friends were not academic in the
slightest. They left as soon as they could often with no qualifications but
gradually learnt trades.

Many now have their own businesses (one is a plasterer, another a builder) and
they earn good money, own their own homes, and have no student debt.

The reason? They had supportive parents. Many of the people who are falling
into despair tragically come from very broken families.

~~~
emodendroket
I'm guessing the successful people you're describing do not have severe
learning disabilities. And I find it at least questionable that parenting has
gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.

~~~
will_brown
>And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less
supportive in the past few decades.

Look at the trends of the past few decades: divorce; single parent; and dual
income households. There is in fact remarkedly less two parent, supported by
single income households, meaning it's a rareity for a child to simply have a
parent at home when they return from school to fix them a healthy snack, ask
how their day was, or help with homework. Certainly it's not a single cause,
but stability in the home is indisputably tied to mental well being of the
child.

~~~
curveship
US divorce rate is lower than it's been for 40 years.

~~~
jdmichal
You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue. The
issue isn't how fast divorced households are growing; the issue is that they
exist at all. Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent
divorced households. And broken households don't do any favors for children,
even if the parents do their best to make it seem amicable.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You're discussing the derivative (rate of change) of the actual issue.

The rate of change is the rate of new divorces minus the rate at which
divorcee households are ending (if the concern is divorced parents with
children, by death of the parent, child, or the child leaving the household.)

> Even if the divorce rate was zero, there would still be existent divorced
> households.

A declining, eventually to zero, number of them.

~~~
jdmichal
Of course I'm not taking a stance that the rate of change is not important.
And of course it would need to drop in order to reduce and eventually
eliminate occurrence...

I was instead pointing out that simply bring up a reduced rate is not really a
counterpoint. Especially when, as you accurately point out, the divorce rate
is not even the entire picture for the rate-of-change of divorced households.
See also Arizhel's sibling comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150694)

But hey, will_brown did a better job of making the same point and defending
himself:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14150843)

------
ryandrake
> The fates of the less-educated and those who graduate from universities
> diverge in dire ways. Middle-aged white Americans without four-year degrees
> are at increasing risk of dying, a well-documented trend driven not only by
> drug use but also by alcoholism, suicide, and slowing progress against heart
> disease and cancer.

While that's pretty damn horrible, the fate of people with newly-minted
bachelor's degrees isn't much to write home about either, unless you happened
to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible.
Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated
housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects, the looming threat
of automation and robotics, underemployment--and if they get a professional
job--a workplace full of only entry-level opportunities, with senior and
management opportunities sucked up by boomers who refuse to, or can't, retire.

Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction, but there's plenty
of anxiety and lack of opportunity to go around.

~~~
posguy
Its the power of capital over labor, whereby capital is extremely stratified
in the hands of very few people, and they have shifted political power so as
to avoid investment in the laborers (aka everyone below themselves) and ensure
they do not become a threat.

Additionally, they will usually influence monetary policy to ensure their
status is never challenged, which is why rapidly rising housing prices aren't
a major political issue at the state and federal level, despite our tax code &
loan incentives encouraging ballooning housing prices.

Also, this is a decent piece:
[https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...](https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-
own-same-wealth-half-world)

~~~
thesagan
Within capitalism itself, some economists also argue that wealth concentration
tends to suppress investment opportunities, because there aren't as many
"moneyed eyes" on economic events worthy of capital and management; investment
gets tunnel vision.

I don't have any links on-hand but there's plenty of material out there (from
reputable sources, and not-so-reputable ones) with a quick Google search.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppres...](https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS734US734&oq=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&aqs=chrome..69i57.12408j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
breatheoften
It seems like capitalism really needs something like a wealth tax -- ideally
with the rate tied to the change in concentration of wealth over the whole
society, so during periods of time when capital is concentrating, the wealth
tax goes up vs epochs when it does not...

Interestingly, I was reading about the idea of a wealth tax and came across
this depressing nugget ...:

> In 1999, Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one off 14.25% wealth
> tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more.
> Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which
> could be used to eliminate the national debt.[18] A net wealth tax may also
> be designed to be revenue neutral as where it is used to broaden the tax
> base, stabilize the economy and reduce individual income and other
> taxes[citation needed].

~~~
prodmerc
Is that accurate? 15% could generate that much? That's mind boggling, I always
assumed it would take a 50%+ tax on multimillionaires/billionaires...

~~~
breatheoften
I can't comment on accuracy but considering the source ... I wonder if there
is even a way to find out -- I'm not sure if anything in existing tax code
would serve as a good proxy for estimating "net worth".

------
cmahler7
We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or
dystopia.

Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost
unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and
consolidating wealth for the elite.

I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the
wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising
up against the elite. The anger that got trump elected is just the beginning
if things don't change

Unfortunately, basic human nature probably won't allow this change to happen
without violence.

~~~
temp-dude-87844
It's difficult to imagine a violent uprising in a state with such militarized
police and widespread, distributed armed forces presence as the US.

When even outside of times of unrest, encounters with the police result in
getting fatally shot or seriously injured much more frequently than in
comparably high-HDI states [1][2], it would take the cooperation of police and
the military to allow unrest to take its course instead of being quickly
crushed; this is culturally unlikely in the US which holds public order and
the continuity of government in high esteem.

[1] [https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-12/when-it-comes-
police-...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-12/when-it-comes-police-
shootings-us-doesnt-look-developed-nation) [2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-
counted-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-
police-killings-us-vs-other-countries)

~~~
Retric
It's one thing to turn a foreign country into a police state, when you need to
actually be a productive society that simply stops functioning with large
scale unrest.

The problem is not direct force of arms, the problem is society needs a vast
number of soft targets to continue to operate. If large numbers of people
chose to simply take down power lines there is almost nothing the police or
military could do. City's water supply pipes are similarly easy to destroy and
difficult to replace. Roads are harder to destroy, but easy to prevent most
civilian traffic.

~~~
temp-dude-87844
I'm not sure whether you're saying that sabotage of infrastructure performed
by the populace is a good way to perpetuate unrest in a way that a militarized
state can't squash, or whether you're saying that the state can quickly
destroy key pieces of infrastructure to cause pain to people who refuse to
fall in line. Because both are true, but the latter is far more likely _and_
effective: after all, who wants to destroy the last remaining enablers of
their comfort, shelter, and livelihood just to prove a point... and then what?

One only need to look at the city of Flint, whose water pipes continue to
deliver lead-laced water to households black and white, but society has
largely routed around the damage: we carry on with our lives and ignore it's a
problem. It's only a problem for those in Flint.

Meanwhile, the military and police can turn off utilities, blockade towns,
enact curfews, and isolate even the flow of information, all without firing a
single bullet. This way, pockets of unrest can be abated before they become a
movement so pervasive that the military themselves defect.

~~~
Retric
Except nothing says it's your power line you destroy. The failure is when
group A destroys B's infrastructure and group B destroys A's infrastructure
but both groups A and B are in the same country.

The gap from tagging aka spray-paint to tossing bricks through windows is
tiny. So, yes you can have independent enclaves that are protected, but it's
easy to get into no mans land where the police don't come to some and then
most areas without a lot of backup.

------
Animats
From the article: _“America is not a great place for people with only a high
school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon. "_

That's it. It just doesn't take that many people to make all the stuff. Erie,
PA isn't going to come back.

The mantra used to be that people would be employed in "services". But
services are more automated, too. Services done at some fixed location are
rapidly being automated. Mobile services, too. Some recent developments:

* Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. [1]

* Doordash delivery - robots now deployed in Redwood City. I've seen one in the downtown area. People just ignore them as they roll along the sidewalks. Their active six-wheel suspension can climb a curb. [2] There's an experimental partnership with Mercedes where a self-driving van holds multiple robots and lets them out for deliveries.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360)

[2] [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-
delive...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delivers-
food-to-your-door_tech)

~~~
exhilaration
> * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over.

I just wanted to offer a data point here, my buddy worked at the Amazon
warehouse in Breinigsville PA a few months back and said he never saw a robot.
Reading Hacker News I would have thought that Amazon had their robots widely
deployed but that doesn't seem to be the case.

~~~
Animats
Amazon has fulfillment center generations. They usually don't automate
existing fulfillment centers; they build new ones and close the old ones. Kiva
robots went in at Gen-8, in 2014.[1][2] Breinigsville PA was built in 2011, so
it's not a Gen-8 center but is too new to replace.

[1]
[http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051](http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051)
[2] [https://vimeo.com/113374910](https://vimeo.com/113374910)

~~~
castle-bravo
Is this an anti-union strategy?

------
Touche
The article doesn't support its conclusion that drug addiction is caused by
people's dim prospects. The man in this article was already an addict before
he was old enough to have any perspective on his future potential.

I think the deeper problem is that kids are not inspired to gain their own
ambitions. So many people walk through life with no ambitions beyond what they
plan on doing next weekend.

I think a huge issue is the way material is taught in school tends towards
hero worship. Scientists, authors, are all looked at as mythical creatures who
achieved things that mortal man cannot. It makes us all feel as though the
best we can ever achieve is being a cog in a wheel. It took me many years
after school to realize that something as simple as starting your own business
was actually achievable (by me!) and not something relegated for those who had
been born of a higher caste, or of some superior skills.

~~~
framebit
Chris Arnade has a lot of first-hand experience witnessing this modern
despair. He writes, "What I saw was huge parts of US, more than reported, was
filling with drugs. And where there was drug there was despair."

Source: [https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-
trump-1c6...](https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-
trump-1c6704d659b3)

~~~
Touche
Of course, economic hardship is at the heart of many of society's problems,
drugs included. I don't argue with that. What I am skeptical of is the idea
that people, once they reach adulthood and see dim prospects, turn to drugs to
cope with that depression. The article you linked to pushes the same idea.

From my bubbled existence, most of the people who I went to school with who
became drug addicts were always part of "the bad kids" cliques; those who
always saw life through the prism of partying and never had ambitions to be
much of anything. Maybe my perspective is totally wrong, and most drug addicts
were B students who just decided not to go to college, but if that's the case
I'd love hard data.

~~~
throwanem
> What I am skeptical of is the idea that people, once they reach adulthood
> and see dim prospects, turn to drugs to cope with that depression.

Do you really find the idea of people self-medicating depression hard to
encompass? I'm having a hard time myself, encompassing the idea that there is
anywhere in the world this might seem like a controversial question.

~~~
Atheros
He almost certainly understands that. But he is saying that he wants data that
demonstrates that the economic hardship causes the depression rather than drug
use causing the depression. Obviously these causes are all intertwined but I
think he's saying that it probably isn't particularly unidirectional.

"The man in this article was already an addict before he was old enough to
have any perspective on his future potential."

~~~
throwanem
FTA, my emphases:

> Johnson started using opioids in high school after breaking his collarbone,
> first in football and again while wrestling, and he got hooked on his
> prescription, _his mother thinks_. He was a functional addict at first,
> caring and warm, but _things slipped out of control after he graduated and
> found that his skills—art and cooking, but not academics—meant little in the
> workforce_.

In Arnade's formulation, this is how a front-row kid who succeeded looks at a
back-row kid who failed. "Where's the numbers?" and "Always looked to me like
drugs are for people without ambition in the first place." Which, fine, if
that's how you want to look at it. But, speaking as a back-row kid who's known
a lot of front-row people and had a lot of front-row jobs, it doesn't aid
understanding.

~~~
Touche
What I was trying to say is that it's more complex than the article paints it.
Certainly despair, and economic despair in particular, is at the heart of many
of societies problems, drugs included.

But it's not necessarily the one in despair that turned to drugs. It might be
his/her kids, who grew up without a supportive family (or perhaps were abused)
when then found friends who accepted them, who turned them on to drugs. I
mean, drug stats are what they are, more than 50% start before their 18.

~~~
throwanem
I mean, maybe? Where are you trying to go with this?

------
lispm
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system)

The German dual education system addresses this. Normal jobs have a formal
education system where young people learn practical things in companies and at
the same time they learn more theoretical things in special schools. One gets
some kind of degree and it also enables them a further path for education and
career. You could have gotten education in jobs like plumber, aircraft
mechanic, medical assistant - there are more than three hundred apprenticeship
occupations.

This gives young persons with more practical skills a real education and
career path. There is also a positive social status for those who went through
this system.

The companies also pay them for taking this education. Around 850 Euro per
month.

[https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-
system...](https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-
system-2129.html)

> In Germany, about 50 percent of all school-leavers undergo vocational
> training provided by companies which consider the dual system the best way
> to acquire skilled staff.

[http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-
german...](http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-germanys-low-
youth-unemployment)

> The Secret To Germany's Low Youth Unemployment

------
ams6110
_“America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and
I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon,” said Angus Deaton, a
Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist._

Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. It
seems very typical for those with education to look down upon the less-
educated.

The truth is, US high schools miserably fail the non-college-bound student. I
know people without college degrees who make six-figure incomes in the trades
or as entrepreneurs. They did not get there with any help from high school
guidance counselors or administrators (all college-educated), who basically
write you off if you are not college-bound or come from an impoverished
background.

The message from traditional education for anyone not going to college is "you
have no future" rather than helping to explore the limitless expanse of
possibilities that are open to anyone who has the motivation and encouragement
to pursue them.

~~~
rfc
This. 1,000x. Some of the most successful folks I know went into trade, became
"masters of their domains", and then bridge their skills with business to
create their own businesses.

As an example: A friend from back home got into boring right out of high
school. 20 years later, he runs one of the most successful directional boring
companies in the region and is a multi-multi millionaire. He was told in high
school that if he didn't go to college that he would fail.

I don't find this to be a unique story from my perspective but I do have some
bias.

~~~
anigbrowl
No offense, but isn't this just anecdata? I don't deny that people can do
extremely well taking non-traditional paths, they certainly can. But pointing
out the existence of exceptions isn't a substantive response to the
observations about the larger trend. You can always find exceptions to any
trend but generalizing from them is fallacious, as any casino owner will be
glad to confirm.

~~~
chrshawkes
I personally make close to 150k per year as a developer and a YouTube
personality. I didn't go to college.

~~~
throwanem
> But pointing out the existence of exceptions isn't a substantive response to
> the observations about the larger trend.

I'm an exception, too. I'm not about to argue that, because I exist, the trend
doesn't.

------
zeteo
> Johnson started using opioids in high school after breaking his collarbone,
> first in football and again while wrestling [... T]hings slipped out of
> control after he graduated and found that his skills — art and cooking, but
> not academics — meant little in the workforce.

> At one point [... he] got a full-time job making wood pallets. [...] “It’s a
> stupid job. It doesn’t matter if you’re high to work it”

It's hard not to think the kid was let down by the system. It should be
inconceivable that you can go through K-12 without being told very sternly
that a) skills in sports, art and cooking are not very marketable, and will
probably only get you "stupid jobs" b) in the current environment, even McD
may require a college degree soon, so you'd better bite the bullet on those
academic skills. Any adult in a position of responsibility should have known
these facts. Yet for 12+ years they've failed to communicate them. The kids
are allowed to drift aimlessly, and then it's somehow their fault if they end
up in a very bad place at the end.

~~~
anigbrowl
Skills in sports, arts and cooking are highly marketable and the evidence of
this abundant, just switch on your TV. These are also highly competitive
injuries in which a great deal of strategy is needed to succeed because the
economics are brutal and the media is dedicated to presenting (almost) only
the upsides in order to attract an ongoing supply of cheap labor that can be
exploited for short-term profit.

I resent your suggestion that people engaged in these field are doing 'stupid
jobs'. It's insulting to to large numbers of people who work diligently and
develop significant skills in those domains whose product you have chosen to
declare worthless.

~~~
zeteo
Yes, and winning the lottery is highly marketable too, isn't it? I didn't say
working in sports, arts or cooking was a stupid job. The stupid job is what
you get if you can't make any money using the skills you've developed.

~~~
anigbrowl
Apparently you think that anything other than being at the peak of one's
profession is a 'stupid job.' There are large numbers of jobs that depend on
people being diligent rather than innovative, and those jobs are certainly
easier to automate, but that does not make them stupid jobs. Stop devaluing
hard work just because some people choose predictability over risk.

~~~
zeteo
> Apparently you think that anything other than being at the peak of one's
> profession is a 'stupid job.' [...] Stop devaluing hard work just because
> some people choose predictability over risk.

The "stupid job" was what the kid himself called his employment making wooden
pallets. It wasn't a job in sports or cooking and I nowhere implied that I
agreed with his assessment. If he had been hard at work and passionate about a
line cook job that didn't pay well, then we'd be having a totally different
discussion.

~~~
anigbrowl
I still reject the idea that someone who is interested and good at cooking
should be discouraged from it because they're likely to end up in a 'stupid
job,' as you aver. I'd be more cautious about encouraging someone to pursue it
now that kitchen automation is on the horizon, but aspiring to be a chef or
run a diner or some other food-related employment used to be a _perfectly
valid career choice._

Every job can theoretically be automated away. Yesterday I was thinking about
someone I knew who specialized in detecting detecting cancer on biopsy slides
(I forget the technical term for her job). Last time I saw that person was 15
years ago and I was musing on the fact that her job as she described it then
may well have been taken over by machine learning since, or will be soon if
not. Did her teachers and family do her a terrible disservice by not telling
her to get into a line of work that would be harder to automate? Probably not.

I'm arguing that we need a different approach as a society to choosing jobs
based on an assumption of remorselessly increasing technological efficiency
and cutthroat competition. This hyper-Darwinian approach to employment,
productivity, and economic decision-making is reducing the quality of life for
an increasingly large number of people, and at some point they are going to
get tired of holding up the pyramid from which more fortunate people self-
righteously piss down upon them.

------
dkhenry
The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This
article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic
status. This is the flip side of a media that has espoused the ideals of
identity politics, they can't even see past someone's racial grouping to
identify a problem facing all Americans ( and most likely other nations too in
our globalized economy ). Bloomberg should be ashamed of their journalistic
quality and integrity

~~~
allemagne
They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though

>While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind
economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in
particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social
context.

Do you specifically disagree with this?

~~~
joatmon-snoo
This comment misses the point - that by focusing specifically on white
America, there's the subtle implication that now that white America is facing
issues that minorities have faced for generations, this is a problem that we
should care about.

------
ageofwant
Many of the Beautiful Machines science fiction from the 60's promised now
exist, but not for you or me. We never stopped to think who these things would
actually belong to and who would benefit.

The 'liberation' of business that replaced the controls put in place before
has brought us to a place where corporate feudalist rules supreme. Those that
defend capitalism and democracy frequently confuse the one with the other.
Hating on 'communism' while being oblivious to the fact that the capitalism
they so feverently defend has died 20 years ago.

Mark Blyth has a lot to say on the topic
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0)

~~~
cartoonfoxes
Good stuff - Mark Blyth's lectures are consistently excellent.

------
wonderwonder
A four year degree is no longer an advantage but rather a base which allows
you to have even a hope of competing. Not having a degree is of course a
disadvantage.

As automation and outsourcing continues, the issue will only worsen. On top of
that we are constantly bombarded with images of the life we should be living
via advertising and television. Not meeting these media driven standards leads
to further depression and despair.

Doctors prescribe opioids because drug companies encourage them too, leading
to an easy addiction and escape for the depressed.

We need to start treating people like they matter and help them understand
that there can be joy and happiness in even the simplest of lives.

~~~
throwanem
Joy and happiness are nice things to have. Making rent every month is nicer.

~~~
wonderwonder
Of course rent is important. But we don't need a 3/2 when a 2/1 will meet all
of our needs. I feel like we are driven to buy things beyond our needs and our
inability to afford those things is one of the drivers of despair.

~~~
throwanem
It's not nothing. But it's nothing next to the fear of ending up homeless.

------
pjmorris
I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be
accurate.

~~~
analyst74
An interesting thing I noticed after moving to America, is that race is such a
big deal here that many issues have to be labeled by race, even if they apply
universally.

Canadian medias on the other hand, seem to be much less interested in playing
the race card.

~~~
rubidium
Canada has <5% minority groups... most are 2-3%. It's pretty much all white
(86% or something)

US is 60% white roughly.

It's a bigger deal because it's a more noticeable issue.

~~~
Raphmedia
Depends on the area. The coasts are very different.

~~~
macintux
I was astonished by the diversity in Toronto. A much more global feel than I
get in the midwest US.

------
temp246810
The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the
media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with:

"Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is
so racist".

That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter
here as a society.

~~~
ChrisLTD
Why is it a load of crap on so many levels?

To take one example, the media and politicians have put a huge spotlight on
the plight of coal and manufacturing job losses, while only recently did we
learn that in fact we're losing even more retail jobs.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-
sil...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-silent-
crisis-of-retail-employment/523428/)

Want to guess at the racial and gender makeup of those manufacturing jobs vs.
retail?

~~~
jnicholasp
I'm not making an argument here, since I don't know the answer to my question,
but is it possible that a higher proportion of coal and manufacturing jobs
were traditionally living wage, support-a-family type jobs, as compared to
retail jobs? And if so, wouldn't it be reasonable to focus attention on the
losses in the two categories somewhat differently?

~~~
ChrisLTD
That's an interesting point, but it leads me to a different conclusion. Given
the higher numbers of people employed in retail, shouldn't we focus _more_
attention on the fact that those jobs can't support a family?

~~~
jnicholasp
> those jobs can't support a family

Should they be able to? Absent some kind of deliberate regulatory or
collective-bargaining action to prop up the price of labor in a given
category, I assume the prevailing wages tend to reflect an implicit agreement
between employers and potential employees on what that labor is worth. What is
the argument for propping up the price of labor beyond what people are willing
to do it for?

Or, put another way, what is the argument for why jobs should be seen as
existing for the sake of giving workers enough money to live on, rather than
as existing because some people want certain things done and are willing to
pay a certain amount to have them done? In the second case, the value of
having certain things done is not infinitely variable: some actions will
create x value in the world, and can only be worth doing if they cost <x to
do. Requiring that those actions be paid >=x will simply mean that those
things will cease to exist. Is it a better world if we regulate out of
existence those jobs whose performance is worth less than a family-supporting
wage?

~~~
ChrisLTD
Thanks for the thoughtful response. The argument for propping up the price of
labor is that 1) we don't want working people to starve on the streets, 2)
politically we've decided it's not the government's job to keep able-bodied
workers off the streets. #1 is clearly right, while #2 should be up for
debate.

As for wage floors killing jobs, the effect would depend on the height of the
floor. Modest increases in the minimum wage have had practically no effect on
employment, but I'm sure massive hikes would cause problems.

~~~
jnicholasp
Thank you, too.

I'm not convinced that propping up the price of labor directly follows from
your point 1), which I do of course agree with. It seems better to me that the
government do what it can to encourage the creation of jobs that are valuable
enough to support living wages, rather than mandate that jobs which are not
valuable enough to do so cannot legally exist. The former, I think, encourages
creativity and the development of new possibilities, while the latter
restricts freedom and limits the diversity of the economic ecology.

------
gerbilly
> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how
> to get it there,” said Sue Johnson, _who lay next to her son’s corpse for an
> hour._

It made my heart sink to read this sentence.

Edit: Highlighted the part that made me sad. You _never_ get over the death of
a child.

~~~
_rpd
It's heartbreaking.

> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how
> to get it there”

I think though, that this is a near universal aspect of the human condition.

~~~
ryandrake
Indeed. I don't know anyone whose life is where they want it to be. Certainly
not me.

------
stinkytaco
We've been on a collision course with this since we left subsistence
agriculture and started living in larger groups. Automation's rate has
accelerated since the industrial revolution, but it's been happening for
thousands of years, which is why I think more people don't see it as a
problem. Society's increased consumerism and rising standards of living has
allowed people to move into producing things other than food and eventually
into service, but it's foolish to think this can continue indefinitely;
automation will put more and more people out of work.

~~~
CPLX
That is nonsense. Things got _horrible_ for average workers at the dawn of the
industrial revolution. Then they improved markedly due to progressive reforms,
and are now rolling back in the face of regressive policies and rising
inequality.

It's not really that complicated. Progressive policies, regulation, and tax
policy have better outcomes. There are just powerful and wealthy forces with
vested interests working hard to argue otherwise.

~~~
stinkytaco
I'm not talking about working conditions. I'm referring to employment. We need
less people to do stuff. Thousands of years ago everyone was involved in
subsistance. Pretty soon we developed technologies (the wheel, the plow) that
meant we needed fewer people to do that. So people were able to move on to
doing other things (like making pots or clothing). Pretty soon we automated
those things as well (potters wheel, the loom, etc.) and people needed to
start making other things. Over time not making anything at all, but doing
service work became more common. But automation means we don't need service
work as much either. We're running out of places to move people who's jobs
were automated out of existence. I don't deny that life is much better for all
this technology, but we need to acknowledge the other problem.

~~~
CPLX
> We need less people to do stuff.

A thousand years ago there were 400 million people on earth. Today there are
764 million jobs in China alone. So, on a literal basis at least, that's not
turning out to be true so far.

Your supposition is that _this time it 's different_ than all the other times
people have claimed that automation and technology will make everyone idle.

But maybe it's not different this time. Maybe technological advancement
proceeds relentlessly and has for awhile, and today only looks special because
we're in it. Maybe the mechanisms by which economies achieve full employment
don't work in the way you're describing.

~~~
Jtsummers
GP's statement would have been better written as "we need fewer people to do
stuff relative to the output they produce". Our workforces, globally, are far
more productive than they've ever been thanks to various force multipliers.
Better fertilizers and machinery and pesticides and GMO seeds mean we need far
fewer people to produce the same amount of food as before. The same is true
for most industries, or we are moving towards it being true for them.

There may be 764 million jobs in China, but it's almost certain that those
workers are doing more than just double the work of the 400 million people
from 1000 years ago (as measured by output).

------
anorphirith
it's really getting annoying how US news outlets always separate the
ethnicities in USA, let's stop focusing on who's white and who's not. I'm sure
a lot of these same problems mentioned in the article affect other
ethnicities.

~~~
anigbrowl
If socioeconomic outcomes are heavily biased by group membership (which
certainly appears to be the case) then it would irresponsible not to report on
that fact. Racism is a major factor in US society whether you want to
acknowledge that or not.

------
str33t_punk
I lived a a suburban, white, middle to upper middle class town in Connecticut
until four years ago. There was a massive opioid problem in my high school.
There were several overdoses a year. We even had a kid OD in the bathroom.

I am still Facebook friends with many of these kids -- none of whom really
finished high school. I see them go in and out of rehab on social media all
the time. More and more of my friends who did end up going to college are
dropping out for various mental health issues. A lot of them are not
rebounding.

It's all very surprising coming from a middle class suburban town in CT but it
is the new normal I guess -- many friends of mine from other suburban / rural
areas tell me their towns are facing the same issues.

------
TYPE_FASTER
I didn't really get it until I heard a radio piece where a guy being
interviewed remembered factory jobs running a stamp press were paying
$30-40/hr. Those wage levels aren't coming back.

------
hive_mind
I don't understand this focus on "white".

Young people everywhere are haunted by crises and despair.

------
gambiting
"America is not a great place for people [....]"

It seems to be true in general, unless you have a boatload of money, but then
I would argue you would be ok pretty much anywhere. HN has been bombarded with
such grim news of the US that I honestly feel bad for Americans(maybe I
shouldn't, I don't know), but at least on paper, the world's greatest country
doesn't look that great to live in anymore(UK is looking worse and worse by
the minute, so maybe it's a general trend).

~~~
Wohlf
You think this because you've bought in to media hyperbole. America and the UK
are fine places to live, they may have some problems but they are fine. Our
homeless are often better off than the lower classes of many countries and
millions of people risk life, limb, and fortune to come here.

~~~
anigbrowl
_You think this because you 've bought in to media hyperbole_

I love it when people make evidence-free assumptions about other people they
know nothing about. That's what makes this society great.

------
throwaway2048
these problems get 100 fold worse with increasing automation, and probly
needing a triple PHD to actually get a job, maybe.

The fantasy that millions of jobs are going to fall out of the sky is exactly
that. We need to think of real solutions, and soon.

------
alistproducer2
As a parent, that mother's story is horrific. I couldn't imagine the pain of
something like that. Not just because her son died, but there's no way she
doesn't somehow blame herself for how he turned out (as I know I would).

Moving one, there's is something to be said for the effect of expectations.
The data shows that you don't see the same levels of mortality rise in any
other population. Simply put, us minorities don't have a false narrative of
the American dream instilled in us and therefore don't expect to achieve it.
We don't experience suicidal disappointment in ending up in a dead end job
because our role models (parents grandparents) are statistically likely to
have held those kind of jobs.

Personally I hate "white privilege" as a trope, but it does speak to something
real: minorities, until very recently, were largely locked out of the American
dream (as white people know it). The wealth of white households was 13 times
the median wealth of black households and 10 times the wealth of hispanic
households[1]. Numbers don't get like that over night. They are the result of
generations of discrimination and institutional systems designed to exclude
and screw with people that were not white. The point I'm making is that the
average white person today probably doesn't even realize that, relative to
other groups, their expectation of what a "nice" life is is basically seen as
unattainable for others. Hence, we (POC) don't kill ourselves because we
failed to reach the unattainable.

As the economy, and society, has diminished the ability for many whites
(especially in rural areas) to take vantage of their "privilege" and they're
forced to play the same game as the rest of us, they find themselves feeling
like failures right out the gate and aren't quite sure why - hence the anxiety
and subsequently despair.

The answer to this is not that white folks "check their privilege" \- although
it would help to stop being in denial about it and the effects it has on them
and their expectations. The answer is to realize that rugged individualism is
just a myth. In no other culture is this myth so central, and now so damaging.
Despite what their parents and grandparents, and TV shows and movies have
taught them, their relative success is not due to how much tougher they are
than other folks and America is not, and has never been a meritocracy.

At this point, white America can continue to believe this rubbish at their own
peril. Support policies that acknowledge people need other people and we will,
evidently, kill ourselves if we go at everything alone as "rugged indivduals"
unless the game is rigged in our favor (even if we don't realize it).

1: [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-
wealt...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-
great-recession/)

------
LeoSolaris
The way that title is worded makes me think that the author thinks that "Young
White America" believes they should despair more!

