I think this has to do with the Great Recession. Prolonged economic insecurity is associated with a poor mental health. And that is in turn associated with self medication with things like alcohol and opioids.
"Life expectancy progress in UK 'stops for first time'"
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45638646
"Life expectancy falls by six months in biggest drop in UK forecasts"
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/07/life-expecta...
"Why is life expectancy faltering?"
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/23/why-is-life-...
For the UK at least, it's policy.
The main alternative political party spends more time making itself unpopular than opposing the government, or we may have voted in a change years ago.
Of course it is. Where do you think main streets pensions and 401k are invested? Where do you think main street people work?
also most people aren't employed by large business.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/five-big-myths-about-amer_b_8...
Workers are not getting more or better benefits. They're getting the same or worse benefits, it's just that health insurance costs for the same plans increase each year at a rate that vastly outpaces inflation.
[1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AU065A_INSUR_9...
Cost of living and healthcare costs are skyrocketing and have outpaced inflation for decades. Wages are stagnant, and benefits are rare for those who are working.
Yes, if you have significant investments, you're benefiting handsomely.
If you have thousands of dollars of student debt, can barely afford health insurance and are making much less than your parents did at your age, things don't look so good from that perspective.
~70% of employees receive health insurance benefits. [3] And unemployment has never been lower.
Since 2010 the unemployment rate for young workers has dropped steadily from nearly 20% to about 8%. The lowest ever recorded was 7.8%. [1]
Real median household income has also risen sharply since 2010. [2]
Please don’t move the goalposts to something like “the economy is perfect for everyone”. In the context of “is the Great Recession” responsible, I am merely stating a recession ending over 10 years ago followed by the longest period of economic growth the US has ever seen, just seems like an unlikely candidate as a potential cause.
[1] - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/youth-unemploymen...
> ~70% of employees receive health insurance benefits.
From your third source:
> For part-time workers, access to medical care benefits was 21 percent and the take- up rate was 56 percent.
Post-2008 recession saw a restructuring of employment. I know plenty of college graduates who are saddled with debt and are scheduled to work slightly less than full-time hours in order to sidestep having to be offered benefits.
Nearly 80% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck[1]. 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense[2]. Wages have stagnated for most Americans since the 1970s[3].
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/11/live-pa...
[2] https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house...
[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...
For all workers overall, access is 72%, take-up is 73%, so overall participation is 52%. Thats Table 1, Row 1.
Of course sub-populations like part-time workers have lower access and take-up, but they are included in the average for All Workers.
See Table 1 on Page 6 of the BLS numbers. The claim that “benefits are rare” is demonstrably false. Benefits are rare for certain sub-populations of US workers, but not rare overall.
Real wage are stagnant (not clear if those real wages are accounting for increased employer share of medical benefits) from the 1970s. Real household income is not stagnant, particularly since 2010.
(Edit: Household income vs individual wages — perhaps household income rising reflects mainly the participation rate increasing? Which would be a negative effect on individual wages.)
Again, the point is about recent increases in suicide rate in the context of a 2008 recession.
Yes, there is. From your second source:
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70K deaths is about 0.25% of the U.S. population. It would only take the economy being sucky enough to seem hopeless for a few percent of the population to produce a meaningful increase in deaths of despair for this number of people. The economy could be doing great for the majority of people, and this would only rub it in further for a marginalized group.
If poverty rates explained the recent life expectancy drop and concomitant suicide rate and overdose spike, we are wasting a lot of time in this comment section.
Except the poverty rate is falling. [1]
Maybe the theory is that even though the economy has been getting better for almost a full decade, and the poverty rate has been falling, there is a segment of the population that is still in poverty or even coming out of poverty and yet still feeling more dreadfully helpless than past people in similar financial status.
[1] - https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26...