[ExI] Covid increasing 'deaths of despair' for the working class

[BillK]

Lifespan now more associated with college degree than race: Princeton economists
By Theo Wayt    March 8, 2021

<https://academictimes.com/lifespan-now-more-associated-with-college-degree-than-race-princeton-economists/>

Quotes --
The one-third of adult Americans who have bachelor's degrees have been
living progressively longer over the past three decades, while the
two-thirds without bachelor's degrees have been dying younger since
2010, according to new research by two Princeton University economists
who first sounded the alarm on "deaths of despair."
----------------
"For people without a bachelor's degree, for at least the first six
months of the pandemic, it was either 'I risk my life' or 'I risk my
livelihood,'" said Case. "There's no reason to think that it's going
to be anything but very bad news in terms of even lower life
expectancy for people without a bachelor's degree."

The longer-term fall in life expectancy for the working class has
coincided with declining union membership and a globalized economic
system with fewer U.S. manufacturing jobs, Case said. As economic
prospects for people without college degrees have fallen, working
class people — especially whites — have died more frequently from drug
overdoses, suicides and alcoholism, a pattern that Case and Deaton
identified using the now-ubiquitous term "deaths of despair" in a 2015
paper and 2020 book.
----------------
Case said that the mortality gap she and Deaton identified shows that
broader economic changes are required to increase the power of
workers.

"We need to figure out in this country how labor is going to regain
its seat at the table when the pie gets cut," she said. "If we don't
do that, we are at risk for things that will make the Jan. 6 seizure
of the Capitol look like nothing."
-----------------------
End quotes.

The social problems in the US haven't gone away. Increasing inequality
will make the situation worse.

BillK