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Death of the Middle Class – Literally
“Sickness and early death in the white working class could be rooted in poor job prospects for less-educated young people as they first enter the labor market, a situation that compounds over time through family dysfunction, social isolation, addiction, obesity and other pathologies.”
I was stunned when I read this article and others describing a study that was conducted in 2015 by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two celebrated economists, and then updated in a study just released. Our middle class is dying.
In a country that has celebrated its declining mortality rate, due to our success as a nation, we now have a large group of people whose mortality rates are climbing. Case and Deaton describe an increase in “deaths of despair”—people with high school education or less, between 25-54, who suffer from poor job prospects, little hope for the future, drug use and depression. The trends include a decline in marriage, children born out of wedlock and increased physical and mental problems.
At a time when we have seen the gap grow between the successful and the poor, resulting in a shrinking middle class, we may be seeing the manifestation of these social misfortunes.
‘For many Americans, America is starting to fail as a country,’ said James Smith, chair in labor markets and demographic research at the Rand Corp., who wasn’t involved in the paper and said he was struck that mortality rates are rising for young working-class adults. ‘The bad things that are going on in America do not appear to be going on in Western European countries, and that’s a big deal.’
The phenomenon is occurring all across the country, to men and women, both in urban and rural areas, Ms. Case and Mr. Deaton wrote.
Although blacks and Hispanics have had a higher death rate than whites, their rates are going down, while whites have increased, closing the mortality gap.
We’ve been hearing about the shrinking middle class for a long time. When we read these statistics, though, the reality that our fellow Americans are suffering to this degree is deeply disturbing to me. Stories appear that even more middle class Americans are going to lose their jobs through technology improvement, robotics and other types of progress and efficiencies that are sure to displace even more people. Even worse, where do they go for help? More government outlays? We have an enormous number of duplicative job training programs, but are they serving these folks? The medical community? Another group that will be in even more chaos if our health laws and services aren’t straightened out. The churches? Unless the people in need are selective, they may find liberal churches that assure them that their problems are society’s fault, rather than locating churches that empower and encourage them to find their way out of this downward spiral.
Case and Deaton tell us, “…the ills are so deep and complex that it could take many years and many changes in policy to reverse.”
Can we just stand by and watch this happen? Are there steps we can take as a concerned nation to change these dynamics? Do we have a responsibility to take action? What can we possibly do?
Published in Economics
It seems to me that much of the anger directed at NR in general, and at Kevin D. Williamson in particular, is little more than an exercise in shooting the messenger. Neither NR nor Williamson created the country’s dying towns or the drug abuse that sometimes goes on in them.
As far as I can tell, the only thing of which Williamson is guilty is bluntly stating that a good way to deal with such towns is to get out and let the towns – not the people – die. Strong and unpalatable medicine to be sure, but attacking Williamson for offering it will not save any towns or – more to the point – any lives.
Didn’t say it wasn’t true, just that it is anecdotal to the main argument, that most migration is at the choice of those in motion.
Bigger families are also an asset for this sort of thing even outside of collapsing towns that some advise people to leave:
It can be very helpful for a family to have a child who’s the “designated child” – the child expected to drop everything, including building a respectable career, in order to work for the family, free of charge, caring for its aged and infirm.
If parents have only two children apiece, though, the “mooching” (working gratis for the family rather than pulling in income (and resumé-building cred) from an outside source) the designated child does is diluted by fewer other family members working “real jobs” (that is, jobs which pull in income from the outside world (and also build careers visible to the outside world)), even if the “mooching” the designated child does isn’t really mooching in an important sense. Moreover, should the in-family, unpaid labor of the designated child ever come to a natural end, there are fewer family connections the designated child can rely on to get good-paying work despite all the lacunae in the designated child’s resume.
After all, even when everyone lives in the same town, the siblings working 8+ hours a day outside the home, while also perhaps caring for their own children, too, can’t really be there all that much for an aged or otherwise infirm adult in need of care.
Yes, the “choice” to go look for a [better] job or opportunity when you’re pretty much screwed where you are – which is more or less the NR/Williamson thesis.
See The Great Migration out of the south in the early 20th century, as yet another example other than those already cited.
The subject of “migration” is one that I find interesting. My parents pulled stocks, moved and started over three times. They left Scotland for Canada (where they met and married), left for Detroit after they married, had three kids, headed west. Stopped in California, and had three more.
Out of their five kids, four of them live within a 2 mile radius (I am the outlier at 35 miles). Recently one brother (at 55) left for another state (a day’s drive). Both of my sisters are eyeing his guest home;I predict a slow migration in that direction.
I wonder what my parents had that we lack? I know California is dying; we should have left already. But I live in a town I love, with neighbors I love. Today is Sunday, 3 of my 4 kids were here to celebrate a 6-year old’s birthday. As we speak the only missing child is on Facetime and getting passed around. There are two neighbors here who drove past the house, saw cars and just stopped by. It’s a safe bet there’s leftovers and cake.
On April 15 when I write that check to the state of California my husband and I will look at each other and ask: what are we doing here? But then Sunday will come, and we are reminded of why we stay. I’ve encouraged all my kids to look into opportunities in other states; to leave now.
But then Sunday comes …
Most our mankind’s mental structures evolved while humans lived in small bands of hunters. And most our habits, customs, and societal norms developed when the majority of our population lived in small, rural and agricultural settlements.
What did living in these societies require?
So modern society doesn’t require us to be part of a tribe to survive, provides enough sustenance without effort to make us comfortable, and sufficient entertainment to keep us home alone. But man needs to be part of a group, needs to have work and accomplishment, and get out of his home and become a part of his community. Our brains developed that way.
Without these social requirements to get off the couch, poor health, depression, and anti-social behavior result.
Current societal mores and government incentives are destroying the social capital of our forefathers. What to do? Not sure on that.
Relationships and community connections count for a huge amount. That’s the reason I empathize with those who have to pick up and leave. We did it a number of times, but family was scattered all over the country, and I didn’t grow up around my relatives. Leaving FL, though, with the people I’ve befriended, would be tough. I get it, Annefy.
An insightful and fascinating comment, Johnny. I think you provide a framework that we haven’t considered. Thanks so much for presenting this perspective–even if we both end up not knowing what to do.
I’m big on family for sure with plenty of specific experience to go with that. But our modern condition is very complicated in this regard and not really validly subject to ‘simple’ traditional ideas. Previous commenters spoke of burdens placed on selected siblings who care for aging parents and the descriptions certainly fit. It works the other way as well. In my extended family, including those in-law components, in almost every nuclear component where there are three or more children, at least one of those children ‘mooches’ well into adulthood and some even into marriage off the aging parents. Some of this comes from what we recognize as ‘enabling’ but it is a trap not easily avoided by many parents. As family size continues to diminish in our society the chasm widens of how family is viewed. We will end up with many elderly with no connection at all.
In part? Probably women entering the workforce. Women tend to “shoot higher” when they are trying to find a mate. When women entered the workforce suddenly there are a lot of women who are making the same or more then a lot of men, given those men a really hard time in the marriage market.
Mike, I’m not clear on what you are saying. (I’m not disagreeing–just not clear.) What do you mean women “shoot higher”? When women make the same or more then men, I’m not sure how that gives men “a really hard time in the marriage market.”
It’s called hypergamy: the act or practice of a person marrying another of higher caste or social status than themselves. Nearly all women want to do this.
If a woman has no education or career prospects, any man with a job allows her to marry hypergamously, and thus even poorly educated unskilled male laborers can find a wife. When a woman has a bachelor’s degree or a $50K/yr job, she still wants to marry hypergamously, but by starting her shopping from a higher status point, she has a smaller pool of potential mates. This creates more competition for the higher status men and leaves the lower status men out of the race.
As an analogy: the vast majority of women want to marry a man taller than they are. A woman who’s 5’2″ can accomplish this by marrying practically anyone, as can a man who’s 6’4″. A man who’s 5’2″ has almost no one in the pool of potential mates, and a woman who’s 6′ has a small pool that she shares with the shorties, and thus both have trouble marrying.
Women tend to “marry up”. So if they improve their solo economic/educational status status, they start from a higher level and have more men cut o\ut of their pool of prospects.
Wow. It even has a name! Thanks, Amy. I know that some women want to marry up, but when I was in the workforce, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to marry. (I will admit that my parents wanted me to marry the equivalent of a Jewish doctor–obviously that didn’t work out.) And you’re right–at 5’2″, height was not an issue for me.
I’ll be honest — one of the things that initially attracted me to Mr. Amy was that he’s 6’2″ and built like a linebacker. He’s one of the very few people I can stand next to and feel feminine instead of an awkward over-grown Amazon.
Makes sense to me.
@amyschley Excellent points, the working class as exhaustively documented in Coming Apart didn’t have the social capital to offset the excesses of the sexual revolution, feminism, and drug culture. The detailed articles that profile working class families maladies are rife with family breakdown, alcoholism, drug use, fatalism, and an unwillingness of the individuals to acknowledge that their lifestyle choices have led to their harm. What is even more tragic is that those same people are also unwilling to change.
@midge I agree that many in the conservative/right are have responded in a sensitive manner because they have not been the subject of “tough love”. Kevin Williamson grew up in a working class town in Texas. He saw the drugs, addiction, family breakdown, and other maladies in the white working class. Because he lived around other minority groups he also saw the issues in those groups too. Conservatives have been dishing “tough love” on inner city people for years. It appears that many of those same conservatives don’t like when it is given to white working classes.
First Things posted a much-discussed article about the opioid part of the deaths:
Thanks, Lazy. I think that two issues are being conflated in this discussion. As I said earlier, I’m all for take responsibility, stop complaining, take care of your life, get a job. That’s my own work ethic and I expect it from others. But the degree to which the devastation is happening (I believe) should not be ignored. On the other hand, some people don’t think it’s serious enough yet. I can’t emphasize enough that this is a both/and argument–compassion and tough love. How to do it under current conditions is a mystery to me.
Hat tip to @pettyboozswha for citing the National Review Online article. I’m pasting in part of it here–note that it’s from Kevin Williamson–
“But the marriage and family that once was a source of security is today a source of insecurity, an unstable and uncertain thing scarcely defended by the law (it is far, far easier to walk away from a marriage than from a student loan) and held in low regard by much of society. Again, this works differently for men than for women: A single mother is still a mother, but a father who lives apart from his children and their mother is not a father in full. If he is not fixed in this world by being a father and a husband, and if he has only ordinary, unexceptional employment, what, exactly, is he? Self-sufficient, perhaps, and that isn’t nothing. But how does he stand in relation to other men, to his neighbors, and to those who came before him and will come after him? His status is vague, and it is precarious. And there is the paradox within our paradox: The world is wondrous and beautiful and exciting and rich, and many of us have trouble finding our place in it, in part, because it is wondrous and beautiful and exciting and rich, so much so that we have lost touch with certain older realities. One of those realities is that children need fathers. Another is that fathers need children.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446091/
It’s not that I think that it’s not a problem, or even a serious problem. It’s that a) we have many other problems in this country that kill a lot more people and b) this problem is in part caused by trying to help.
When you subsidize indolence with WIC and SSDI and food stamps and Medicaid, you get more of it. When you penalize job creators with taxes and regulation, you get fewer of them. When you make private insurance, mutual benefit societies, and other forms of personal responsibility illegal, you get more people dependent on the government. When you convince people that Christian love is demonstrated through government welfare, you get less private charitable giving.
Republicans used to believe the scariest sentence in the English language was “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” I’m not sure how many still do.
First, Amy, I wasn’t just directing this comment to you; you had a lot of people earlier in the post who “liked” your comments, so I’m talking to all of you. Second, I specifically said early on that I didn’t want the government jumping in: NO MORE PROGRAMS! But I am asking, is there anything as a society that we can do? I am simply shining a light on the problem and I think there is merit in that, because I think it rips at the fabric of who we are as a culture and a people. I also think that we are a successful enough country that we can focus on more than one issue at a time. I wrote recently about Alzheimer’s and how what they thought was the cause, isn’t. We don’t give up. We keep pounding at the problem, to find a solution.
Edit: Here’s a crazy idea: maybe we need strategically to get rid of government programs! Maybe we can figure out the ones they really need and throw out the rest!
One of the most profoundly conservative moments in the very unconservative show “Game of Thrones” is early in Season 1 when hero Jon Snow is talking to his friend Sam Tarly. They’re talking about sexual experiences, or rather their lack of them, and Jon talks about the time he visited a prostitute but didn’t consummate the transaction. (He’d been raised as a nobleman’s bastard, and even though in many ways he had just as charmed a life as his half-siblings, their mother made his life so miserable that he left his home as soon as he could.) He was lying on the bed, wanting to indulge himself, but all he could think about was what if the prostitute got pregnant. Being a bastard was such a terrible life he didn’t want to inflict it on another person, and so he practiced virtuous restraint.
In our society, giving birth to a child out of wedlock is considered a downright noble act. The state will shower you with benefits for creating another Democrat and private pro-life groups will do the same because at least you didn’t have an abortion — is it any surprise that 60% of all births in this country happen out of wedlock?
When you take away the stigmas for doing the wrong thing, more people do it.
Regarding the “On the Outside Looking Out” article,
I do think it applies especially to men, but many young women these days were taught to believe it applies to women with the same stringency, too – and no doubt some young women have enough “mannish” traits that they’d believe it for themselves, and judge themselves accordingly, even if they were given permission to think a woman’s ultimate fulfillment were with hearth, home, and family rather than in building something “out in the world”.
Unless we’re “earning our keep”, we’re Lebensunwerten Lebens, and we owe it to the world to execute ourselves so it might be rid of the burden. Or at least that’s how it can feel. This happened to me with postpartum depression: Clearly, mothers with babies should not execute themselves to atone for their unworthiness, even if they truly are rather crappy mothers, since in all honesty, having a crappy mother is, for nearly all values of “crappy”, still better than having no mother at all. Nonetheless, that sense that I was not earning my keep, either outside the home or in it (after all, just being a mother is not the same as being a good-enough mother), and so did not deserve to live, was very hard to shake. And of course the more importance you attach to earning your keep, the more overwhelming the shame is.
Couldn’t agree more. Consequences matter.
With one caveat. In another time a lot of those children who are born out of wedlock would have been aborted.
Annefy, you might have missed Amy’s comment–
The state will shower you with benefits for creating another Democrat and private pro-life groups will do the same because at least you didn’t have an abortion — is it any surprise that 60% of all births in this country happen out of wedlock?
I think she was saying that you get rewarded for having a baby out of wedlock by the pro-life groups, too.
Understood. I am personally not familiar with benefits bestowed post birth by prolife groups but I do know families are certainly more supportive than they might have been in previous generations
I think the word you’re looking for is “adopted.”