Who Killed the Knapp Family (Poverty in America)

Summary: 1970's small town rural Oregon. Father, pipe fitter, bought home & cars. Five kids. Jobs left in '90's. 4 kids now dead (before age 70), as are 25% of the kids they rode the bus with. Causes: suicide, accidents, OD, renal failure. "... in Yamhill [OR], Clayton Green, a brilliant mechanic ... died last January, leaving five grandchildren — and all have been removed from their parents by the state for their protection."

"several counties in the United States have life expectancies shorter than those in Cambodia or Bangladesh ... when you can predict wretched outcomes based on the ZIP code where a child is born, the problem is not bad choices the infant is making."

Why? "First, well-paying jobs disappeared, partly because of technology and globalization but also because of political pressure on unions ... Second, there was an explosion of drugs ... aggravated by ... marketing of prescription painkillers by pharmaceutical companies. Third, the war on drugs sent fathers and mothers to jail ..."

Hope: "Job training and retraining give people dignity as well as an economic lifeline ... For instance, autoworkers were laid off during the 2008-9 economic crisis both in Detroit and ... Windsor, Ontario. ... The United States ... extended unemployment benefits. Canada emphasized job retraining ... and Canadian workers also did not have to worry about losing health insurance. Canada’s approach succeeded." Resumed-ed education & addictions treatment may help too

It is an important data science philosophy claim that, if a person's outcome can be predicted without accounting for the person's actions (e.g., before the person is born), then causation appears to exist somewhere other than in the person's actions.

Upvoting because I'm interested, but I can't see the article due to the paywall.