I was surprised when I read the stories recently about life expectancy declining for working class whites.
This was followed, of course, by all the usual bull---- about "irresponsible" behavior regarding drugs and alcohol, as though working class whites today consume anything like the alcohol or cigarettes they did, say, in the 1950's.
The real reason remained unspoken: working class white males who refuse to see their families go on welfare and are desperately trying to stay in the lower middle class are working themselves to death.
When they can no longer do so, because there are no jobs or illness or exhaustion set in, they kill themselves.
We just had a local resident join the growing number of people jumping off the George Washington Bridge; we have a growing number of cases with people walking in front of trains and such over the past few years. The fact is there has been no recovery here in the northeast (in fact we haven’t hit bottom yet), and every time you see news of layoffs (as companies flee the high-tax states here) that means hundreds of families ruined by foreclosed homes - there are simply fewer and fewer jobs left that would allow one to stay in this area (due to those same costs). Even working two full-time McJobs (often the only work available) will never replace the salaries and benefits enjoyed by those of us still working jobs from the “before-times” (who have it hard enough already).
Our youngest and brightest are streaming out of the state; I suspect many of those dying prematurely are those stuck with underwater mortgages who have no escape. If they don’t kill themselves outright, they drag it out with drugs and/or alcohol; heroin use and DUIs have never been so high in my memory (and I’ve been here my whole life).