Barbara Ehrenreich: America’s Blue-Collar White People Are Dying at an Astounding Rate

[LiberalArkie]

Originally posted at TomDispatch

The white working class, which usually inspires liberal concern only for its paradoxical, Republican-leaning voting habits, has recently become newsworthy for something else: according to economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the winner of the latest Nobel Prize in economics, its members in the 45- to 54-year-old age group are dying at an immoderate rate. While the lifespan of affluent whites continues to lengthen, the lifespan of poor whites has been shrinking. As a result, in just the last four years, the gap between poor white men and wealthier ones has widened by up to four years. The New York Times summed up the Deaton and Case study with this headline: “Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap.”

This was not supposed to happen. For almost a century, the comforting American narrative was that better nutrition and medical care would guarantee longer lives for all. So the great blue-collar die-off has come out of the blue and is, as the Wall Street Journal says, “startling.”

It was especially not supposed to happen to whites who, in relation to people of color, have long had the advantage of higher earnings, better access to health care, safer neighborhoods, and of course freedom from the daily insults and harms inflicted on the darker-skinned. There has also been a major racial gap in longevity—5.3 years between white and black men and 3.8 years between white and black women—though, hardly noticed, it has been narrowing for the last two decades. Only whites, however, are now dying off in unexpectedly large numbers in middle age, their excess deaths accounted for by suicide, alcoholism, and drug (usually opiate) addiction.

There are some practical reasons why whites are likely to be more efficient than blacks at killing themselves. For one thing, they are more likely to be gun-owners, and white men favor gunshots as a means of suicide. For another, doctors, undoubtedly acting in part on stereotypes of non-whites as drug addicts, are more likely to prescribe powerful opiate painkillers to whites than to people of color. (I’ve been offered enough oxycodone prescriptions over the years to stock a small illegal business.)

Snip

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18638/barbara-ehrenreich-americas-blue-collar-white-people-are-dying-at-astoundin

[Sherman A1]

1. Interesting

thanks for posting.

[madaboutharry]

2. I think cigerette smoking also plays a role.

I know I have seen statistics that show a much higher rate of smoking among this group.

[eridani]

3. The only other time something similar happened was to men in Russia--

--after the USSR breakup.

[LiberalArkie]

5. The men could no longer fulfill their reason for existence: to provide for his family and himself.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Subconsciously Bernie is more than likely correct in his thinking

All of this means that the maintenance of white privilege, especially among the least privileged whites, has become more difficult and so, for some, more urgent than ever. Poor whites always had the comfort of knowing that someone was worse off and more despised than they were;



From Bernie: “They told white workers who were earning pennies an hour, ‘Hey, you think you’re in trouble, but you’re better off than the blacks,'” he said. “And they told straight people, ‘You’re better off than those gay people.’ And they pitted men against women. It’s always playing one group against another. That’s how the rich got richer while everybody else was fighting each other. Our job is to build a nation in which we all stand together.”

[tecelote]

7. +1

[LuvNewcastle]

8. Bernie's absolutely right,

and he's the only candidate I've ever seen who speaks about American politics and economics in that way.

[JI7]

6. the drug thing is interesting

Not surprised about the guns.

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. I wonder if this, or the underlying study, factored in ...

the intersection of racial/gender gains (economically and socially), since white working class males, also, poll as seeing racial/gender equality as a zero sum game, where any racial/gender gain is seen as a loss by the white working class male?

[U of M Dem]

19. You have an interesting thought,

I can't speak for the study but I would bet the gains made on this side of the so called "culture war," is a variable amongst the conservative working class whites in their self-destructive behaviors. I could see that one's perception that the world is closing in due to gains being made regarding minority rights, TLGB rights, and women's rights in legal, cultural, and social arenas would be distressing for that individual.

I think there are many other variables involved in a decision to commit suicide or in the process of slow suicide / self-destruction in the form of addiction such as high availability and social acceptance (or apathy) towards the methods of self-destruction (alcohol, guns, street drugs, cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, behavioral addictions etc.), environmental stressors (economic stress, family conflict, legal trouble, safety concerns etc.), poor education / lack of insight / Dunning-Kruger effect, and (as the OP discusses) the capabilities of the individual not lining up with the values of the male conservative archetype; when the individual is unable to be independent and capable in all contexts, unable to be stoic/unflinching in the face of stress/trauma, unable to be productive for the family/community, or otherwise unable to feel "manly" due to age, illness, poverty, unemployment etc..

[LiberalArkie]

23. I would never have thought that as a kid with asthma and "growing out of it" I

thought. Then as a young man working my way out of mild schizophrenia and mild bi-polar through hard work and living just to work. Accumulating stuff and loosing it. etc. etc. And then to loose the 401k to the banks. And then to find out when I retired that I did not grow out of bad asthma, nope came back, it usually does when you get older I found out. And nope I was not out of the woods with the mental things, they come back when you get older. (side note: maybe what happened to Dear). But handling the skits isn't a big problem as long as you know it is there. Bi-polar is easy, I just do an antidepressant and enjoy the manic phases when they happen.

But if it is happening to me, how many other guys forgot they had those problems as children and young adults only to have it come back like someone throwing cold water on you when you are asleep.

[tanyev]

10. While I can see the so-called diseases of despair being a factor,

this is a group very likely to have been impacted greatly by increasing lack of health insurance during the reporting period. I hope we will be able to see if 15 years of access to health care turn those numbers in a different direction.

[wolfie001]

11. Diabetes and drug use

It's very prevalent in western Maryland. Funny (or not), that area's as red as Alabama.

[vi5]

12. When you're told it's your "right" to be unhealthy....

...when you're told that it's the nanny state libtards that want to stop you from drinking a gallon cup of soda......from smoking.....from eating fast food or whatever the hell you want to do........the ones who want to "make" you go get a check up.

Living a life of spite has it's costs and this is what it is.

[Arugula Latte]

26. Yep. There's a big element of defiance in this.

"No vegan hippie is gonna tell me to eat organic rabbit food! Gimme my half pound of ground beef on a bun and my 800 calorie bag of fries!"

That's Freedom!

[KentuckyWoman]

38. Freedom fries

are patriotic. Wave the flag and gobble up the biggest order of "freedom fries" you can stomach.... preferably buried in a cup or more of whatever hot liquid cheese like substance the local quick food place uses.

You are exactly right. In eastern Kentucky poor Republican voters have a feeling they are screwing over a "libtard" every time they go to Hardees or Texas Road House ... etc etc etc.

This goes for gobbling up a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast. Screw Peta and those veggie eating hippies.

[Arugula Latte]

46. Yes. I've seen it and heard it.

Of course, there are many poor/blue collar people who would love to eat a healthy diet but don't have the resources or access to fresh veggies and the like. But this anti-health-food sentiment as an offshoot of conservativism is definitely playing a role in the high death rates among white males.

[PotatoChip]

13. I admire Barbara Ehrenreich, but I have a minor issue with this article.

She seems to be focusing almost exclusively on blue collar white men ages 45-54. But in the actual study it was found that it is happening at roughly the same rate to blue collar white women of the same age group. (By the way this is also a more rural phenomena as I show in the excerpt below).

One of the reasons that this bothers me is that the omitting of women from these statistics may be leading people to inaccurate conclusions. Take for example suicide by gun... Women are far less likely to kill themselves in this way.

Furthermore, women of this sub-group (ie rural, blue collar, middle aged, white women) are much less likely to own guns then men. I don't know the exact statistics, but anecdotally I can tell you that I know of only 1 woman who owns a gun (for hunting) but every single man that I know of owns them. It tends to be mostly men who hunt here in rural America.

Here is a portion of an interview PBS did with Anne Case on with November 4rth:

JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s already — Professor Case, it’s already being labeled by some as despair-related deaths. What is it particularly about this — these mortality — this mortality rate that stood out to you?

ANNE CASE: The fact that there are several parts of this that are puzzles that we have to dig into further, the fact that it’s men and women, mortality rates by suicide, by drug overdose, by alcohol-related deaths rising for all of — for both men and women, the fact that it’s not happening in the African-American community, it’s not happening in the Hispanic community, and it’s not happening abroad.

So, all of those things stood out to us as puzzle pieces that we have to look into further to figure out, what are the root causes of this? We know the proximate causes, drug overdose, availability of prescription opioids. But I think the next round of research will be to look at the deeper causes.

Also left out (unless I missed it in Ehrenreich's article) is that they tend to be rural, with only a high school education or less:

So, they tend to be rural, white, not high education levels, or high school, no bachelor’s or even a community college degree. And the places those populations are heavily based are the Bible Belt, what we call evangelical hubs, the Appalachian America, which is what we call working-class country, and then graying America, which is kind of more based in the North and the West, but populations, again, elderly — more — I don’t want to say elderly, but older people and people without a lot of college degrees, overwhelmingly white.

What do we know about those places? Higher unemployment rates than the national average, higher unemployment rates than other kinds of communities in the country.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/despair-led-stunning-hike-mortality-rates-americans/

[LiberalArkie]

15. I can tell you who the people are. They are the waitress, the construction workers, the brick layers

the people who had kids in high school and had to go to work. Many working at cash paying jobs and figure out too late that they have not paid anything into social security and medicare. They can not provide for themselves or their families. They live in the rural areas because they can not afford a place in town. Most of the white men and women do not have the safety nets, the large family support groups that the blacks and latinos have. They have worked hard their entire life, their bodies giving up on them and they see no way that they can make it.

[fasttense]

16. I read the initial study and though women of that group

Have an increase in deaths men have an even larger jump in death rate.

I live in the rural south and you described this group very well. A lot of the women dump the men when he loses his job or gets too old to work. With no social security the men become a burden to their families. The white guy who shot up the church in East TN suddenly found out he wasn't getting the Social Security he expected.

They listened to RepubliCONS all their life and found out the RepubliCON retirement program for the middle class was die and die quickly.

[LiberalArkie]

18. And I go back to what Bernie said that middle class and upper class people do not get

“They told white workers who were earning pennies an hour, ‘Hey, you think you’re in trouble, but you’re better off than the blacks,'” he said. “And they told straight people, ‘You’re better off than those gay people.’ And they pitted men against women. It’s always playing one group against another. That’s how the rich got richer while everybody else was fighting each other. Our job is to build a nation in which we all stand together.”

[PotatoChip]

21. Yup. That pretty much covers it, in my opinion. (nt)

[Munificence]

28. On High unemployment-

Last edited Wed Dec 2, 2015, 06:08 PM - Edit history (3)

This area (Appalachia) did not even realize the effects of the "Great Recession" as they had already ate that pile of shit in the late 80's.....been bad there for a long time and the Great Recession just proved that it would never come back.

This area was the last strong hold out for "family". The men worked at the mill, the mother stayed home to raise the kids, dinner was on the table every day and you sat down as a family. They didn't have much, but being frugal and having a strong family structure was really their goal. That is until it was all wiped away.

Now the men "toil" at $10.00 an hour jobs and the wives pick up part time work to make ends meet. They are trying the best the can and they are not getting anywhere.

They look to politics trying to find an answer, they may find DU and all they hear about is their "White fucking Privilege" and they decide to vote for trump as the Democratic party that they used to vote for when they were "union strong" democratic voters at the mills hate their ass.

We've done more to run these folks away from our party in the past 10 years and it's embarrassing, we are our own worse enemy.

Those fucking Hillbillies never hurt a mofo on the face of the earth and all we do is beat the shit out of them with saying stupid shit like "they have white privilege".

They are struggling their ass off, they are poor and yet we as a party want to open that S. border and let all that cheap labor come in. They try to leave for the major cities to work and they find out that they'd be better off back home working for $10.00/hr vs the $12/hr Mexican labor rate in the "trades" around the major cities as it cost a hell of a lot to live in a motel, work for months on end and miss being away from their family. They head back home like scolded dogs, turn on the news and all they hear about is "their privilege" as white men.

I got out years ago, worked my ass of and saved every dime I could. Sure I had to sacrifice a lot but I had to break the trend, I wanted better. The only way out was the military. Yep, gotta go do some good old fashion killing in order to try and get out and "make it" in order to have a chance to go to college (GI Bill) and I did. I now am classified as a "top 5%er", I identify as a "progressive" but am more of a modern day hippie.

I like traveling back home, real people and good folks, but damn do they despise our party...and it's our own damn fault. When trump is nominated President we will look and have no one to blame besides for ourselves. Sure it's a big fucking tent on our side as long as you are not a lower class white family. We get what the fuck we deserve and although I will not like it, I will snicker a bit and say "told you so"....we get exactly what we deserve.

When I go home I def do not mention their "white privilege" as those men will still punch you right in your fucking nose for spouting stupid shit like that at them.

And we here at DU always take jabs at them, their "hillbillies, rednecks, married cousins, toothless, etc" and if we would have had any fucking sense we would have welcomed this group into our tent...but no we can't let those crackers in, they are privileged white folk.

And then we have the nerve to say "Why do they always vote against their best interest".....hahaha we are some dumb fuckers when it comes to vote getting.

Who knows, maybe we can get them on board for Bernie.

[Dems to Win]

31. +1

[KentuckyWoman]

39. Wow.

That really deserves it's own thread.

Righteous rant...... and thank you.

Seriously...... I hope you repost that to it's own thread.

K& R the thread for posts like this.

[Maeve]

44. The family farms are gone, too

I grew up in rural Ohio and have watched the destruction of the farmland over the past 50+ years...there is no place for some of these people to go. Their parents and grandparents made a good (enough) living, but that isn't possible now for many of them and the land disappears into urban expansion or "get-away" homes for people who want the quiet of the country but not the smells of a farm. I've watched small towns lose the local factories that they depended on to make it thru as the farms died and seen crime and despair-fueled drug use fill the gaps. These are people who used to believe they were the backbone of the country, salt of the earth...now, they feel forgotten and tossed aside.

Damn right they're angry and frustrated and ready to follow someone who promises to bring back the past. But on some level, they know that isn't going to happen, so light a smoke, grab a beer and watch some Duck Dynasty.

[mdbl]

14. I blame fast food

Every white working man i know routinely eats at a fast food joint for lunch and half the time for evening meals too. Add this to the list.

[PotatoChip]

20. But the study shows that this is a rural thing...

See my post upthread...

Rural areas often differ greatly depending on region (mine is less religious then others-- for example). However, if there is one thing that most rural areas have in common, I would venture to guess that it is the distances we have to drive to get anywhere-- including McDonalds. For me, that would be over a 50 mile round trip.

There is no way I'm going to travel that far just to eat at MickyD's or any other fast food place.

[mdbl]

25. Don't know what the rural thing is about then, other than there always seems to be an industrial

exploit nearby. That is until the plant closed and moved to china.

[TwilightGardener]

24. This is a huge factor. Poor diet/smoking. My husband works in a blue-collar male dominated

industry, and the guys he works with down family-sized bags of doritos and eat fast food constantly, they all smoke like chimneys, and the middle aged guys all seem to have numerous health problems you'd expect for old people--diabetes, strokes in their 50's, etc. Add that to their chronic alcohol consumption and you've got a lot of sick birds.

[lumberjack_jeff]

40. That would be misplaced.

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html?_r=1

But I'm sure there are lots of other blame-the-victim theories we can develop prior to reading the articles.

[mdbl]

41. I stand corrected

[phantom power]

17. "better nutrition and medical care" -- but both have been undermined severely.

On top of that, add conservative hate-radio and fox news, telling these people to be afraid 24/7, with crappy jobs or no jobs at all... Of course that's a recipe for people to start dropping dead.

[ananda]

22. Key words ..

.. likely to vote Republican.

This feels like one of those Darwin award moments.

[RonnyK]

29. What a cold hearted reply

I would really hope that we, as the more compassionate party, would not make off-handed remarks like that which belittle the suffering our communities. I come from blood red upstate NY, which actually came through for Hillary's senate run.

[KamaAina]

27. Nickel and Dimed to Death

[Dems to Win]

30. They've paid a high price for unchecked illegal immigration

Thirty years ago, a man with a high school education could get a job in a slaughter house or landscaping or roofing or construction and make a living wage, able to support a family. Now, all of those jobs are minimum wage, at best, and all the people doing them speak Spanish.

Instead of working class, they are now working poor, with a minimum wage job at WalMart.

For thirty years, people have cried out that we need to enforce our immigration laws. Having millions of exploitable people in the country, combined with unscrupulous employers, has been a disaster for our native-born working class. The Democratic and Republican Establishments have silently agreed to do nothing, to allow millions of undocumented people to remain in the country for 10, 15, or 20 years. Now their kids have grown up and we call them DREAMers, visible proof that America has not been enforcing it's immigration laws.

I won't be surprised if Donald Trump becomes our next President, on this issue alone. If America has to elect a loudmouth clown in order to enforce our immigration laws, that is likely exactly what will happen, imho.

[hifiguy]

33. The jobs were all shipped overseas.

Immigration had little to do with it.

Tax breaks for offshoring, NAFTA, and pure piggish greed are the real reasons.

You post smells funny.

[Dems to Win]

34. Some jobs can't be shipped overseas. Construction, roofers, etc

Of course many jobs have been shipped overseas, and that has hurt the working class, a lot.

But they can also see with their own eyes that working class jobs held by their fathers and grandfathers are now held by immigrants, many of them undocumented. Here's just one example:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0314/How-one-small-Midwest-town-has-turned-immigration-into-positive-change

Here at West Liberty Elementary School, mathematics is about more than numbers and shapes. It’s a blending of two languages, two cultures, and two very different groups of people that have come to inhabit this small town in rural Iowa. Like scores of rural communities across the Midwest and Great Plains, West Liberty has been transformed in the past several decades by an influx of newcomers, most of them Latinos who came to work in the big turkey processing plant that sits just beyond the downtown.
snip...
But what makes West Liberty remarkable is that its efforts have taken place in a state that has been profoundly ambivalent about immigrants. In the 1970s, Iowa took in many refugees from Southeast Asia. But unlike some neighboring states, including Minnesota, Nebraska, and Illinois, Iowa has refused to adopt policies to make life easier for the many immigrants here illegally, such as allowing them to pay in-state tuition at state universities or get a driver’s license.
snip....
One sign of change in West Liberty is the rise of one of its newest town councilors, Jose Zacarias. Mr. Zacarias is a short, stocky, outgoing man who arrived in West Liberty 31 years ago from Mexico. He had a law degree but no visa. Like many immigrants in the country illegally, he found a job cutting up turkeys at the processing plant, slicing one to a pile of bones in less than a minute.

Thirty-five years ago, my cousin dated a young man who worked at a slaughterhouse. It was hard, dirty work, but he made a good wage. Now, slaughterhouses are Spanish speaking worksites, all over the country. And people working there are not making a living wage. Many are undocumented, willing to do dirty, awful work for almost no money.

This has really hurt the working class of our country, and they are angry about it. I'm a Democrat, but I'm not willing to put my head in the sand and pretend I can't see what's in front of my own eyes.

I'm a Bernie supporter, trying to remain hopeful, but I'm also full of dread at what I see as the upcoming Trump presidency.

[hifiguy]

35. Millions of manufacturing jobs vanished.

MILLIONS. Never to be replaced.

[Dems to Win]

42. It's not either/or, it's both.

Millions of jobs lost to off-shoring, and millions of jobs lost to undocumented, exploited immigrants allowed/encouraged to come here and do the dirty work formerly done by the American working class.

[hifiguy]

43. Believe whatever you want.

The facts are what they are.

[hifiguy]

32. It's all a part of the plan

Last edited Wed Dec 2, 2015, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

to get what Henry Kissinger 40 years ago called the "useless eaters" to disappear. Getting them to exterminate themselves saves a lot of corporate costs and increases the fascist machine's efficiency.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. Maybe the office of women's health can do something about it.

Or perhaps the white house council of women and girls can take this on as a project during women's health week.

[LiberalArkie]

37. I am sure that the men's health agencies have it all figured out since research has

been done for so many years.

[randome]

45. It's more complex than this.

It's affecting whites in general but women more than men.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-on-that-most-important-study

So what difference does this weighting for age make? Pretty significant ones it turns out. When he recalculated the numbers, Gelman found that rather than a continuously rising mortality rate for middle-aged white people from 1998 to 2014, the rate rose as Case-Deaton found until about 2005 and then basically leveled off at the higher rate.

But things get even more surprising when he broke the numbers apart by gender. The leveling off conceals a starker reality. Starting in 2005, the mortality rate for men began to go down and got back to 1998 levels by 2014. The mortality rate for women kept right on going in the wrong direction.

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