the rise of suicide in middle aged white America: retirement no longer bonus, but time of struggle

[jwirr]

52. This age group has been raised with some unreal expectations.

When they reached adulthood they fully expected to have a good job with benefits for the rest of their lives. They expected to achieve at least a part of the American Dream. You know - like owning a home, having money for their child's education and enough for retirement.

For a few years it actually looked like that is what was happening. But then raygun was elected and started attacking the unions which led to jobs problems and they finally realized they were not getting ahead like they had expected. So in anger many of them started voting for Rs who blamed this whole change on the poor, minorities and taxes.

But this did not seem to help so they turned to Bill Clinton and the DLC never guessing that this group were leaning more toward the Rs than the Democrats that they remembered from the earlier days. So yes, they had a few good years on the stock market but wages and jobs did not rebound to their original state. President Obama tried but he also was unable to turn us back to the days when we were actually creating a middle class instead of loosing it.

Today they are on the verge of that retirement they looked forward to and they realize that even that is threatened. They are waking up to a nightmare. They have traveled a road from the hope of a good future world to the disillusionment most of us have today.

That coupled with the real pains of aging and the new problems that they never foresaw, like climate change, wealth inequality, lack of healthcare just when they need it most, the high cost of college for their children, the idea of continual war, media lies and many with not enough income to live on - it is not surprising that they are taking the "easy" way out.