
Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans - pappyo
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html?_r=0
======
artur_makly
"Visit some formerly middle class suburbs of cities in the Midwest and you can
see exactly why this is happening. No decent jobs, no social clubs, no
children playing outside, sports tickets out of the budget of anyone but the
1%, no decent restaurants and obesity everywhere. Add decayed infrastructure
and empty malls. You should see it. Horrific. "

"These sad statistics should come as no surprise given the pummeling the
middle class has taken since 1980. As middle-aged, white males have been fired
wholesale by the tens of thousands, battling years of constant unemployment
with few or no resources, they have literally reached the end of their means.
Broken men are unable to escape from hearing everyday how the executives of
their ex-employers are reaping massive profits and personal gains. Their lives
are overlaid with exhausted savings and unemployment benefits; all the
negatives in their lives beat down on their heads like a ceaseless hailstorm.
Finally, swallowing their pride, they turn to the caring myth of family and
friends only to find them replaced with the harsh reality of indifferent
relatives and unhelpful acquaintances. Too young for Social Security and too
old for today's employment prejudices, the unloved and unemployed white males
have few options. "

[nytimes comments]

~~~
curiousgeorgio
It's a sad state of affairs made worse by undereducated, lazy people who blame
the government and simultaneously elect politicians who promise to solve the
problem for them by handing out a gift-wrapped "american dream" that everyone
feels they deserve. I see this kind of self-destructive philosophy/behavior
every day, and I'm getting tired of it. It's always someone else's fault, yet
it seems the "progressives" in our country keep shouting that the solution
lies in more government involvement, forgetting that the only way we get
decent jobs and favorable social and family conditions is by letting people
fulfill their own dreams through hard work and less government intervention.
The american dream isn't a gift - it's the idea that through blood, sweat, and
tears, we can shape our own lives.

From my perspective, the problem is a manifestation of a shift in popular
ideals and a growing sense of entitlement.

~~~
creshal
> the only way we get decent jobs and favorable social and family conditions
> is by letting people fulfill their own dreams through hard work and less
> government intervention

We tried that during the industrial revolution. Didn't _quite_ work out that
way…

~~~
curiousgeorgio
There's a role for government to play in ensuring public safety and
transparency, in addition to providing national defense and perhaps a few
fundamental infrastructure services. To function effectively in those areas,
we don't need them trying to manage the finances of everyone, nor picking and
choosing who should or shouldn't be deserving of tax breaks, subsidies, or any
of the other countless benefit programs.

When people are out of work or large classes of people are struggling to get
by, it's because we haven't provided a suitable environment in which people
can thrive (and yes, most people can and will thrive through their own action
in a healthy environment), _not_ because the government has somehow failed to
give people enough prosperity.

If it were a traditional business (without the ability to print money or use
military force), the U.S. government would frankly be one of the most
disastrous companies ever imagined - not just bankrupt (many times over), but
mismanaged, fraudulent, and corrupt. A huge portion of our paychecks go to
support this company today. And we want more of it?

~~~
creshal
Are you listening, or are you posting copypasta?

~~~
curiousgeorgio
A constructive argument might be more appropriate than simply trying to
deliver an insult in your comment.

~~~
creshal
I'm just confused, because you didn't address anything in my comment, you're
just spewing right-wing propaganda. We tried "small government", it failed
horribly and lead to widespread misery and avoidable deaths. How do you plan
to make a "small government" _without_ repeating past mistakes?

~~~
curiousgeorgio
I did address your reference to the industrial revolution indirectly, but
perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The industrial revolution had numerous
positive outcomes including more jobs, increased productivity, and a strong
economy. Yes, it also uncovered some serious problems, many of which were
addressed by the government (e.g., child labor laws, better working
conditions, etc). In my opinion, those are valid areas of government
involvement (hence my point about government ensuring public safety), but
that's a far cry from the kind of government intervention we're seeing today.

If we failed anything with small government as you say, those things were
growing pains that we would have experienced with a government of any scale. I
guess what I'm saying is that it's unfair to blame "small government" for the
problems exposed during the industrial revolution.

------
xacaxulu
I'm in my 30s, male and ostensibly white by American standards and I've been
watching these sorts of trends for a while. Distrust in our certain brand of
capitalism has led me to regard America with a wary eye. It has influenced a
lot of my life decisions, i.e. stack cash, stay mobile/agile, no spouse, no
children, etc. so that I can continually pursue the best jobs no matter
when/where they appear. I luckily was able to obtain an EU passport recently
via my mother, giving me a few extra countries as potential markets for work
but mostly as a hedge against a (probably) meaningless 401k or just the
general depressive idea of eventually being an older person in the US.
Basically I'll spend my good years putting money away, and as soon as I'm sick
(read, need healthcare) or ready to retire, I'll bounce back to the mother
country where retirement actually looks like living rather than dying.

~~~
ageek123
I guess you haven't looked to carefully into how the EU economies are doing.

~~~
tomp
Don't worry about that, we might not have amazing growth, but the actual
living standards are still amazing in the EU (specifically, Slovenia). If it
changes soon (hopefully not), it's more likely to be because of the influx of
immigrants/refugees, not because pf the economy.

------
wyclif
Ageism still seems to be very much in play in technology, and a trap to avoid
for middle-aged, skilled white men:

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/02/google-
agei...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/02/google-ageism-and-
the-business-of-plastic-surgery.aspx)

This guy had eyelid surgery, shaved his head, and got a pair of Converse
"Chucks" to look younger because he was worried about jobs (previous HN
submission):

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-
ageism-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism-
idUSBRE8AQ0JK20121127)

"Don't hire anyone over 30":

[http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-
anyone-30-ageism-...](http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-
anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/)

~~~
ak39
Thanks for the links. This from the last link:

    
    
       "To walk the streets of Austin during tech’s biggest annual confab, South by Southwest Interactive, is to experience a society where Boomers and Gen Xers have vanished into a black hole. Photos of those open-space offices favored by start-ups document workplaces where people over 35 are as scarce as women on the streets of Kandahar."
    

At least made me chuckle against the backdrop of an otherwise serious topic.
Well-written piece.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
This is funny.

Also funny -- I worked in Austin in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Looked the
same then. When I was stressed out one evening, I joked with my wife that I
was tempted to run over a few of the yuppies. With so many, who would miss a
few?

So wonder where all those guys went?

On a related note, this weekend might be a good time to re-watch Logan's Run.

~~~
wyclif
Sorry, I won't be at Carousel tonight. It's my Love-Shop turn.

------
marincounty
Maybe my math is wrong, but the raising rate is .134 percent?

I'm in that group of guys now. I sometimes wonder if white males are getting
enough vitamin D. I never really gave it much thought, until I saw a friend's
blood work-up. His doctor is routinely checking his level of vitamin D. I just
chalked it up to his good insurance plan.

I know I don't get the amount of sunshine my father got. My father always had
a tan, and made sure to get outside as much as possible. I, on the other hand,
spend too much time looking into a screen. Maybe I'll get a few more years in
because I have exercised, but it's been at night for years.

Depressing. Sometimes the Internet is really depressing.

~~~
draven
The death rate "increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014".
Without the starting point (the death rate in 1999) we can't know the raising
rate. If there were 268 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 that would be a 50%
increase for example.

------
Alex3917
I did an analysis a couple years ago and found that drug misuse kills about a
third of Americans. Possibly even more if you include the new study that found
that the surgeon general's report is undercounting tobacco deaths by 80k per
year or whatever, which I didn't because that wasn't out at the time.

[http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2014/05/the-one-
sta...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2014/05/the-one-statistic-
you-never-hear-about-drugs.html)

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211#abstract](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211#abstract)

~~~
danieltillett
Alex interesting post, but I would not put too much value in the ADR numbers.
Getting accurate information on the cause of death due to ADR is not easy
given death in hospital rarely has a single cause.

------
browseatwork
It would be interesting to see this broken down by gender. My hunch is it's
hitting men harder, but I'm curious if that's reflected in the data.

------
AlexB138
I may be projecting, but I feel like this is a symptom of our deteriorating
middle class. White, now middle aged, men have been hit over and over by free
trade, out sourcing and cheap immigrant labor suppressing labor value. Now
they're beaten and broken.

I've worked with these people and seen it first hand. In my anecdotal
experience, depression and drug use isn't just a common case with working
class whites, it's nearly the majority. These people know they've been
abandoned by society, and a lot of them are just giving up. They're people who
have put in 60 hour weeks of hard labor, with little to no health care, for
decades and have next to nothing to show for it, and no hope of things
improving.

------
niels_olson
Naked capitalism has found a way to thin the herd more efficiently than the
Jonathan Swift ever imagined. A modest proposal indeed.

Unrelated: the top NYT comments are better than HN. Sad day.

~~~
vixen99
What is naked capitalism as against, for instance, naked socialism? And how
germane is all to this to the topic? Or is it just hand waving according to
predilection?

~~~
niels_olson
Would you like it better if it said "pure capitalism"? Or "capitalism and only
capitalism"?

------
DanielBMarkham
I must be missing this. I read the article carefully and scanned the comments
here. Looks like FUD-bait to me.

This is how I would write the article (and this is probably all there is to
the article)

Over the past 15 years, death rates for whites per 100,000 people aged 45–54
remained basically the same, with the natural increase lifespan being offset
by increases in both suicide and alcohol/drug issues. This difference is
statistically significant, but it is on the order of 1 or 2 extra deaths per
thousand people for their lives from 45-54. It is highly unusual for death
rates to change like that. The last great change in the west of this magnitude
was with the introduction of HIV/AIDS. For context, the average middle class
white american would experience the same increase in risk if they took up
canoeing over the same period.

But maybe I missed it. I got a graph where one line stays the same where
others decline, and I got a graph where risk increases for a couple causes of
death by a very small amount (out of dozens not listed)

Also I have approximately 50 comments lamenting the rise of third world
conditions in places like Peoria and the death of all things good and decent
in the USA. I believe if a little more context was provided by the news outlet
in this case, perhaps our comments would be more aligned with the actual
impact of the news being reported.

------
zeckalpha
Is this a case of Simpson's paradox?

~~~
nostrademons
Don't think so. Simpson's paradox applies when you have two groups and
_independently_ rates of your variable are increasing within both, but the
population of the lesser group is increasing faster. For example, if death
rates for both whites and blacks were decreasing but blacks had a higher death
rate, and the population of blacks was increasing, you would see overall death
rates increasing. If death rates for both uneducated & college-educated white
Americans were increasing but there were an increasing number of college-
educated white Americans, you would see death rates decrease.

Neither of those seem to be the case here: it's just one group who,
tragically, is killing themselves or self-medicating to death disturbingly
frequently.

------
littletimmy
You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these poor
middle-aged white people.

The greatest success of capitalism has been dividing people along gender and
race lines - not letting them show any class solidarity. If people did, they'd
realize that the difference between a poor white and a poor black is a
rounding error compared to the difference between a poor guy and a rich guy.

~~~
uououuttt
> You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these
> poor middle-aged white people.

Speaking of "dividing people along gender and race lines".

------
adamwong246
Happiness is reality minus expectations. Guess who had the highest
expectations? White guys.

------
SHIT_TALKER
_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._

This should surprise no one. These are the people who work marginal jobs and
they have been the most affected by so much manufacturing moving offshore, the
resultant shift to service sector employment, and the downward push on service
wages created by massive immigration of unskilled South American workers. (Not
to mention the political and social demonization of this cohort.)

~~~
vfrogger
I don't think you can tie this to economics alone. After all, blacks and
hispanics have been feeling the economic pressures as well.

Suicide, drug use, and alcoholism have deeper cultural ties. I have no idea
what those ties are, but it likely won't be fixed by a 4% annual increase in
wages.

I can't help but wonder if perhaps this increase in self destructive behavior
is due to an increase in secularism. Blacks and Hispanics are more religious
than whites, and with that religiosity comes greater church attendance which
likely brings greater community support (a generalization, I know, but I'm
guessing that this is probably more true than not).

~~~
awl130
Good theory but the same cohort in Europe has not seen the same Effect despite
even higher secularization

~~~
vfrogger
I don't know, I don't believe Europe is really doing a bang up job of
preventing suicide either, but I will admit that I don't know much about the
situation, I'm just hypothesizing.

------
Someone
Side note: looking at the color choice in figure 3
([http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf)):

 _" Census regions are Northeast (blue), Midwest (red), South (black), and
West (green)."_

I think they were picked manually. On the one hand, I think picking that makes
them more memorable, on the other hand, it surprises me that people in the
politically hypercorrect USA would pick those colors this way.

------
shams93
Speaking from experience Im 43 years old but been rejected by women my entire
life in LA for being a "white guy" its certainly depressing that no matter how
well you do you have to spend your entire life alone have to be ignorant of
sexuality because its cut off from you , theres never any reward for my
efforts no matter how well i do only puniahment for being born the wrong
ethnicity.

~~~
smt88
> _for being a "white guy"_

I am 100% certain that you have not _only_ been rejected for being a white
guy. White people are the most sought-after race in the United States[1],
partially because most people seek partners of the same race.

Furthermore, the language you're using is deeply concerning. Women aren't a
"reward" for your efforts. Failing to find a sexual partner is not a
"punishment". No one owes you sex, and there isn't a grand design that's
keeping you from finding someone to have sex with.

I think it's very important for you to seek counseling or the support of a
therapist. They'll be able to help you learn how to start and maintain a
romantic relationship. There's always hope.

1\. [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-
attraction-2009-2014/](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-
attraction-2009-2014/)

~~~
dropit_sphere
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-
romanc...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/)

~~~
smt88
I skimmed this and have no idea what it has to do with the comment I was
responding to.

The argument in the article seems to be that, if you're a good guy on paper
(you don't abuse women, you're financially stable, etc.) that you should get
attention from women instead of men who aren't good guys on paper.

My response is similar: the world is not a vending machine where you insert
"hard work" or "not beating women" and a sex partner drops out at the bottom.
No one just "deserves" sex. It should never be a bargaining chip or a debt
that someone is paying you.

What's particularly disturbing about this line of thinking is that these
people seem to think women owe them _in general_. It's like they don't even
know who they want to have sex with them, and they feel that _some_ woman now
needs to step up.

Do you not see how bizarre that is? It echoes the comments of the mass shooter
who went to a Lulu Lemon to kill women because they "owed him".

Nice guys are nice guys because they don't want to harm anyone and because
it's good for the people around them. They don't secretly (or publicly!)
expect to be rewarded for it with sex.

~~~
dropit_sphere
If you skimmed it, then you should read it again, in full. Because it didn't
say what you think it said.

