There is a phenomenon occurring to white millennials: the rising premature death of the their parents.
The New York Times reported that the death rate of middle-aged white Americans is increasing, a pattern that is unlike any other age group, race, or ethnic group in any other first world nation.
Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton and Princeton economist Anne Case concluded in their study that big drivers of the high death rate among middle-aged whites are drugs, alcohol, and suicide. This is especially true among poorer white Americans.
According to the economists’ research, 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.
The overall death rate for those with a high school diploma or less has increased by 22 percent since the year 2000.
“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,” said two Dartmouth economists, Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner, in reaction to the Deaton-Case analysis in the Times.
“Only H.I.V./AIDS in contemporary times has done anything like this,” said Deaton trying to draw a parallel to the rising death rates.
While there was no definitive proof as to why suicide, alcohol, and drug abuse are increasing, Meara and Skinner noted that it could be due to financial issues.
Working class whites without a college degree have seen their inflation-adjusted income fall by 19 percent since 1990. Some of that is due to increased competition because of mass immigration of low-skilled workers, de-industrialization, and the mechanization of some low-level jobs.
Middle-aged whites also reported increased isolation, trouble socializing, and increasing struggles with their health.
Perhaps other things are responsible such as the decreasing number of working class whites who attend religious services causing an erosion of social capital as Charles Murray observed in his book Coming Apart.
Another unreported incident could be the demonization of working class whites by the liberal media who run endless stories that they’re racist, sexist, or any other of liberal’s favorite “bad words.”
These are the poor working class Americans who are too often portrayed as villains by the liberal media. They don’t have an interest group, a victimhood identity, and too often are without any hope that their lives will get better.
