I may be projecting, but I feel like this is a symptom of our deteriorating middle class. White, now middle aged, men have been hit over and over by free trade,

I may be projecting, but I feel like this is a symptom of our deteriorating middle class. White, now middle aged, men have been hit over and over by free trade, out sourcing and cheap immigrant labor suppressing labor value. Now they're beaten and broken. I've worked with these people and seen it first hand. In my anecdotal experience, depression and drug use isn't just a common case with working class whites, it's nearly the majority. These people know they've been abandoned by society, and a lot of them are just giving up. They're people who have put in 60 hour weeks of hard labor, with little to no health care, for decades and have next to nothing to show for it, and no hope of things improving.