Is This Really All That Alarming?
In the wake of my friend Vic’s death, I found myself being drawn to an article that addresses how the life span of uneducated males has been declining for the last 20 plus years. But, not only the poor whites but those who are not well educated as well.
Researchers have long documented that the most educated Americans were making the biggest gains in life expectancy, but now they say mortality data show that life spans for some of the least educated Americans are actually contracting. Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group. Experts not involved in the new research said its findings were persuasive.
While the reasons remain unclear, speculation as to the cause may be attributed to the following:
- Prescription drug overdose
- Higher rates of smoking
- Obesity
- Lack of health insurance
During the last 20 years life expectancy for whites dropped 3 years among those who were uneducated and rose a little for black yet still beneath whites, while poor Hispanics are living longer than both whites and blacks.
Without a high school degree:
- Women live to 73.5
- Men to 67.5
With a college degree:
- Women live to 83.9
- Men live to 80.4
Recently, it has been reported that 15% of all Americans are living at or below the poverty level in this country. Since we are right at a population of 300,000,000 then we have 45,000,000 poor people living in the greatest country in the world.
Go figure???
Will putting more Americans to work solve this problem? Or, would be only be hiring high school graduates or college graduates?
What jobs might be available for those who did not graduate high school, I wonder?
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