In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two Princeton economists — Angus Deaton (who just won the Nobel Prize) and Anne Case — revealed that death rates among middle-aged, white, non-Hispanic Americans have increased sharply. Mostly among those with a high school degree or less. This was largely due to drug and alcohol “poisonings,” suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.
Between 1999 and 2013, the number of deaths per 100,000 people rose by 134.4 for this group. That’s more than a 20 percent jump in the death rate. Deaton sees only one parallel: “Only HIV/AIDS in contemporary times has done anything like this.” This hasn’t happened in any other advanced country or among any other demographic group in the U.S.
Between 1979 and 1999, mortality for white Americans aged 45 to 54 declined at nearly 2 percent per year. This was similar as the average rate of decline in mortality for all people the same age in such nations as the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
After 1999, the 2 percent annual decline continued in other industrialized nations, but the death rate for middle-aged, white, non-Hispanic Americans began rising half a percent a year.
Interestingly, the death rate for middle-aged blacks and Hispanics continued to decline during the same period, as did death rates for younger and older people of all races and ethnic groups. Middle-aged blacks have always had a higher mortality rate than whites and they still do — 581 per 100,000, compared with 415 for whites — but the rift is narrowing.
Deaton and Case say there was a significant increase in middle-aged, less-educated whites reporting poor health, chronic pain and difficulties with walking a quarter mile, climbing ten steps and socializing with others. The percentage reporting themselves unable to work doubled.
Drug-related deaths are now higher among whites than minorities. In the 1990s, there was a sudden and ready availability of opioid prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin. Social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich notes: “Manual labor — from waitressing to construction work — tends to wear the body down quickly, from knees to back and rotator cuffs, and when Tylenol fails, the doctor may opt for an opiate just to get you through the day.”
Deaton and Case suggest the working class whites they studied are experiencing stress and despair from economic change resulting from slower economic growth and rising inequality. They have “lost the narrative of their lives.” They were raised to believe in a fraudulent American Dream. “Many of the baby-boom generation,” Deaton and Case note, “are the first to find, in midlife, that they will not be better off than were their parents. Growth in real median earnings has been slow for this group, especially those with only a high school education.” But they also observe that some other wealthy nations have seen “even slower growth in median earnings than the United States, yet none have had the same mortality experience.”
Those other countries have stronger social protection policies and programs that reduce inequality and cushion people from the negative social psychological impacts of wage stagnation. For example, Deaton and Case note that the other rich countries have maintained defined-benefit pensions, while employers in the United States have shifted increasingly to defined-contribution pensions (such as 401(k) plans) that do not provide the same degree of security.
The basics of a decent life are increasingly beyond the reach of a growing share of Americans. More and more people are feeling desperate because they are facing the likelihood that they will fall into poverty after retirement.
“There is a darkness spreading over part of our society,” said economist Paul Krugman in a commentary on the Deaton and Case study. He saw “a link between the despair reflected in those mortality numbers and the volatility of right-wing politics.”
He added, “Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites they feel have betrayed them. No, deporting immigrants and wearing baseball caps bearing slogans won’t solve their problems, but neither will cutting taxes on capital gains. So you can understand why some voters have rallied around politicians who at least seem to feel their pain.”
Donald Trump channels their rage and frustration toward scapegoated, dark-skinned people. His idiotic and racist rants are given unlimited free air time on TV while a genuine populist like Bernie Sanders is hardly mentioned. A recent study showed that ABC World News Tonight has devoted 81 minutes to Trump, 20 seconds to Sanders. The other networks were similar.
If democracy is to survive, this has to change.
This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
