“The states with the highest mortality rates from drugs, alcohol and suicide, among white non-Hispanics aged 45-54, are geographically scattered. In 2000, the epidemic was centered in the southwest. By the mid-2000s it had spread to Appalachia, Florida, and the west coast. Today, it’s country-wide. The authors suggest that the increases in deaths of despair are accompanied by a measurable deterioration in economic and social wellbeing, which has become more pronounced for each successive birth cohort. Marriage rates and labor force participation rates fall between successive birth cohorts, while reports of physical pain, and poor health and mental health rise. Case and Deaton document an accumulation of pain, distress, and social dysfunction in the lives of working class whites that took hold as the blue-collar economic heyday of the early 1970s ended, and continued through the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent slow recovery.”

• This paper is part of the Spring 2017 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity the leading conference series and journal in economics for timely, cutting-edge research about real-world policy issues.
• See also WaPo: New research identifies a sea of despair among white, working-class Americans.
• and Vox – Why the white middle class is dying faster, explained in 6 charts – The complicated collapse of middle-aged white Americans.
• and a look back but very much related article from HBR – From the Knowledge Economy to the Human Economy