IT IS a bad time to be a middle-aged, middle-class, white American. Stripped of manufacturing jobs by trade and technology, then skewered by the financial crisis, white men aged 45 to 54 earn 7% less, in inflation-adjusted terms, than in 1987. Their suffering is not just financial. In November Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two economists, found that middle-aged whites were more likely to die in 2013 than they were in 1999. Another study recently found that, since 2001, gains in life expectancy at 40 have been unevenly distributed, benefiting the rich most. Yet the plight of middle-aged, middle-income whites, while distressing, is atypical. Across the whole population, the chance of early death depends ever less on economic circumstances.
In a recent article in Science, Janet Currie of Princeton University and Hannes Schwandt of the University of Zurich rank America’s counties by the proportion of their residents living in poverty. The poorest areas are clustered in the South; the poverty rate in Holmes County, Mississippi, for example, is over 40%. Counties with the least poverty are likely to be near rich, northern cities; Somerset...Continue reading
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