SUMMARY: Why have middle aged, white Americans experienced a stunning rise in premature deaths due to alcoholism, suicide and drug abuse? Economists who have documented the dramatic decrease in life expectancy say an obvious place to look is the loss of work and economic status for the working class. But economics correspondent Paul Solman finds that's not the whole story.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): But first, the second of a two-part look at the declining life expectancy for some middle-aged white Americans.
Last week, economics correspondent Paul Solman examined the role prescription painkillers and alcohol may play in the trend.
Tonight, he explores how the economy and the job market may be involved.
Its part of our weekly series Making Sen$e, which airs Thursdays.
PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour): The Hardee's in Maysville, Kentucky, a popular hangout for the senior set.
Martin Sauer used to work for the sheriff's department, where he says he saw his share of Saturday night drunks, but nothing like the current opioid drug epidemic.
MARTIN SAUER, Kentucky:People get hooked on it and can't get off of it, or don't want to, causing a lot of younger generation to lose their lives.
PAUL SOLMAN: And by younger generation, Sauer means his middle-aged neighbors, who, as we reported last week, are experiencing a stunning rise in premature deaths due to alcoholism, suicide and drug abuse. But why?
ANGUS DEATON, Economist:The health crisis here is particularly among white working-class or white people with a high school and no more. For those people, the economy's been very hard for a very long time.
PAUL SOLMAN: Predictably, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, economists who have documented the dramatic decrease in life expectancy, say an obvious place to look for a cause is the economy.
ANNE CASE, Economist:It used to be, with a high school degree, you could get a job, that actually could provide for your family. And the disappearance of those may lead people to feel a lot more stressed.
SUMMARY:In spite of decades of advancements in health care, diet and safety, white Americans are now living shorter lives, a trend that has surprised experts. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports out of Maysville, Kentucky, an area struggling with an increase in addiction, overdoses and suicide.
SUMMARY: America's poorest citizens have shorter lifespans than wealthier Americans, and new research finds that gap is growing. But the study also found that the poor who live in affluent and highly educated cities live longer than those who live in other areas. Judy Woodruff learns more from Raj Chetty of Stanford University.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now, the connections between income, geography, and life expectancy.
It’s a sobering fact that the poorest citizens have shorter life spans than wealthier Americans. But new research published finds that the gap in life expectancy is growing. Since 2000, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans can now expect to live an additional three years. For the very poorest, there’s been almost no change.
And yet research also found that the poorest who live in affluent and highly educated cities live longer than other poor Americans.
Raj Chetty is the co-author, and he’s an economist at Stanford University.
Raj Chetty, welcome to the program.
Why is this gap in life spans getting longer for so many people?
RAJ CHETTY, Stanford University: Well, Judy, what we’re seeing is that there is a really dramatic increase in life spans for the very highest-income Americans throughout the country.
What’s interesting is that, for the low-income Americans, say in the bottom 20 percent, we find that the story is very heterogeneous across places. There are some places like Birmingham, Alabama, where the poor are gaining just as much in life expectancy as the rich, but there are other places like Tampa, Florida, where the poor actually losing in terms of life expectancy, where they live shorter lives today than they did in 2000, at the beginning of this millennium.
And so in terms of understanding why we’re seeing this increasing gap, I think the story is not just one at the national level. It’s one that is going to force us to look at the local level to understand why the trend looks so positive in Birmingham, yet so negative in other places like Tampa.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And are there clues now as to why that is?
RAJ CHETTY:The places with the highest levels of life expectancy for the poor tend to have better health behaviors, perhaps not surprisingly. These are places with lower levels of obesity, higher rates of exercise, lower levels of smoking.
They also tend to be cities like New York and San Francisco, more affluent, highly educated, high-cost-of-living cities, where the poor seem to be doing better. Now, we don’t know exactly why. One potential hypothesis is that these types of cities invest a lot in public health. They’re often the first cities to enact things like smoking bans or bans on trans fats, which could end up improving the health of not just the rich, but also the poor.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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