Recently on NPR, I heard an interview with Angus Deaton, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Deaton discussed how white people in the United States are experiencing an “epidemic of despair” as evidenced by rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide higher among middle-aged whites than any other population group. Deaton surmised, and the interviewer seemed to concur, that these trends are caused by increasing economic inequality between the rich and the poor, (more…)
Counter-Currents