Support the Timberjay by making a donation.

Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Breaking trust

Latest study shows the impact of our political system’s sellout to billionaires

Posted

For more than a century, it’s been an axiom in western society that life expectancy for adults, on average, increases every year. But a new study finds that for a significant segment of the adult population in the United States, that trend has reversed itself. On average, less-educated, middle-aged white Americans are now dying earlier than they have in decades.

This astonishing finding was reported last week by two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science just last month, and his wife Anne Case and it deserves more attention than it’s received to date.

This is, of course, much more than a public health story. It’s an enormous political story that should be front and center in the debate over who will occupy the White House and Congress after 2016. While the researchers found that rising abuse of narcotics, both legal and illegal, abuse of alcohol, and an increased incidence of suicide accounted for the lowered life expectancy of this large sub-group of Americans, these are almost certainly symptoms of a much larger problem. These are symptoms of marginalization. This is what happens to people, good people, when they discover they have been left behind, by an economy that no longer has a place for them, and by a political system that no longer sees them as relevant.

Americans should recognize these stunning statistics for what they represent— a wholesale indictment of a political system that, for far too long, has put the wishes of the wealthy and powerful few before the needs of the rest of us.

This large subgroup of Americans held a generally firm grip on middle class status in the post WWII era, thanks largely to this country’s once robust manufacturing sector and employee unions, which provided millions of our citizens with good-paying jobs with benefits.

The timing of this reversal in life expectancy, which began in the late 1990s and continues to this day, should come as no surprise. It was Dec. 8, 1993, when the North American Free Trade Agreement, the first of several major “free” trade deals approved with the strong backing of both Democrats and Republicans in Washington, including then President Bill Clinton, took effect, shuttering once vibrant factories across the country. While many Americans viewed the late 1990s as a period of strong economic growth, it was false prosperity, fueled mostly by the tech bubble. For many Americans in the manufacturing sector, it was a period of devastation, as jobs were lost, and what new jobs there were, rarely measured up to the pay and the lifestyle they once enjoyed. Those circumstances only worsened during the George W. Bush years, as rates of alcohol and drug poisoning skyrocketed among this group of Americans, leaving as many half a million excess deaths in its wake. It’s as if a massive epidemic swept through this demographic slice of America.

The effects of the 2008 financial crisis, which left millions unemployed or facing home foreclosure, only added to the sense of desperation for many. While the economy is slowly mending, the improvements have been uneven and the benefits of a growing economy all seem to end up with those at the top. For most Americans, incomes have been flat for years. For Americans with no more than a high school education, it’s been a steady downhill slide.

It’s worth noting that this falling life expectancy is largely limited to this particular segment of the American population. Life expectancy has continued to rise for middle-aged Americans in every other racial subgroup, despite the fact that these groups have been impacted by job loss and political disenfranchisement at least as much as whites of similar educational background.

That suggests that this isn’t entirely about economics, even though economics likely underpin the other factors that feed into this troubling trend. During this same period, the researchers noted, doctors began prescribing unprecedented amounts of narcotic drugs to middle class whites to treat both the physical and, often, emotional pain they were experiencing.

Doctors, particularly white doctors, are much less likely to prescribe opiate-based drugs to African-Americans and other minorities, which may be one reason these groups haven’t experienced the spike in drug overdose deaths seen among whites. It’s worth noting that rates of drug abuse are now higher among middle-aged whites than any other racial group in America.

At the same time, we’ve seen this sub-group of Americans disappear not only from the middle class, but from the political process as well. That’s as unsurprising as it is self-defeating. It’s easy to be cynical in an age when so many politicians are little more than paid front men for billionaires. But the day that average Americans give up on the possibility for positive change, is the day that this country ceases to exist as a representative democracy. The millions of Americans who are hurting and who are justifiably angry over a political system that has sold them down the river, to benefit those at the very top, have a choice: drown their sorrows in alcohol and drugs, or organize and fight for a better future. We can now say, quite honestly, that lives may well depend on it.