10-08-2016, 10:38 AM
(10-06-2016, 10:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(10-02-2016, 09:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(10-02-2016, 07:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: A good assumption is that Boomers will live longer than Silents did.
Highly doubtful. Life expectancy has been falling for a decade among working class whites and is now falling for whites overall - enough so that it's stagnant for the overall population.
Quote:Life expectancy fell for the U.S. white population in 2014 and remained flat for all population groups combined, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/life-expecta...1461124861
That neatly coincides with the shift from Silents to Boomers of the peak death years.
Suicides and drug overdoses are on the increase for working-class white people. Suicides may be more common among the elderly than among the young, but very few people around age 70 die of drug overdoses. Drug overdoses for white people are largely from opiates, including oxycodone and heroin. Highest rates of death from drug overdoses (which especially include opiates but can also include suicidal overdoses including the infamous Valium-and-vodka cocktail) are among white people. Black people, many of whom are aware of the dangers of heroin and other opiates, often have a culture that remembers the Bad Old Days in which heroin ravaged poor urban black communities.
Map here:
http://time.com/4260798/drug-epidemic-america/
The white dopers are now largely Millennials and late-wave X, many of whom come from communities comparatively safe from dope in the 1960s and 1970s. Black people in their 50s and 60s know all to well about King Heroin and warn kids today. White people in their 50s and 60s can't believe that it is happening.
The Washington Post did a very interesting series of articles about premature death among working-class whites. A common scenario is getting hurt in some kind of accident and then getting hooked on pain killers. Alcohol abuse and poor diets also played a factor.
The deaths being discussed in the article were people aged 45-60. Mostly first wave Xers and late Boomers.