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Meanwhile Europeans are working older, to the same effect. The boomers enjoyed a nice work life balance across the classes for the first time in human history,

Meanwhile Europeans are working older, to the same effect. The boomers enjoyed a nice work life balance across the classes for the first time in human history, but the ruling class managed to get us back in our place.

mbroncano 9y ago
Other than the classical whataboutism, it's blatantly not true. US is mostly a developing country regarding most social and health standards, from general health to lifespan.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  you mean it's lagging behind most indicators from other comparable countries, including equality index, healthcare quality and average lifespan.
dsego 9y ago
We are back where we were at the beginning of the 20th century.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  We most certainly are not. We are really, really far away from it. Beginning of the 20th century was a time when Europe had high child mortality, utilized lots of child labour, pretty non-existing retirement benefits except for a very narrow elite, and abysmal maternal and hospital care. "Spanish disease" (in this case, the bird flu) wpied out hundreds of thousands of people at end of WW I. And even outside wars, violence was much more commonplace than today. Sorry, I must say it's outrageously ignorant to say what you say. Incidentally, I just wrote about early 20th century in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14966404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14966404 When Bismarck introduced the old-age pension system in Germany in late 1800's, the retirement age was 70 years. Life expectancy in these parts of Germany was 67 years. As to the OP article, it seems that surprisingly few people have read this: There’s no simple answer for why longevity gains are slowing. For years, economists and public health experts have been trying to ascertain what’s behind America’s troubling death trends, among them a rise in death rates for certain demographic groups. A much-discussed 2015 paper suggested that mortality was rising for middle-aged white Americans, citing suicides, drug overdoses, and alcohol, collectively sometimes referred to as “deaths of despair.” Women have been particularly affected. What America then is seeing is not that old people, retirees, would die younger. It is seeing working-age people (not necessarily working people) die of unnatural causes.

mbroncano 9y ago

Other than the classical whataboutism, it's blatantly not true. US is mostly a developing country regarding most social and health standards, from general health to lifespan.

LoSboccacc 9y ago
you mean it's lagging behind most indicators from other comparable countries, including equality index, healthcare quality and average lifespan.

dsego 9y ago

We are back where we were at the beginning of the 20th century.

ptaipale 9y ago
We most certainly are not. We are really, really far away from it. Beginning of the 20th century was a time when Europe had high child mortality, utilized lots of child labour, pretty non-existing retirement benefits except for a very narrow elite, and abysmal maternal and hospital care. "Spanish disease" (in this case, the bird flu) wpied out hundreds of thousands of people at end of WW I. And even outside wars, violence was much more commonplace than today. Sorry, I must say it's outrageously ignorant to say what you say. Incidentally, I just wrote about early 20th century in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14966404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14966404 When Bismarck introduced the old-age pension system in Germany in late 1800's, the retirement age was 70 years. Life expectancy in these parts of Germany was 67 years. As to the OP article, it seems that surprisingly few people have read this: There’s no simple answer for why longevity gains are slowing. For years, economists and public health experts have been trying to ascertain what’s behind America’s troubling death trends, among them a rise in death rates for certain demographic groups. A much-discussed 2015 paper suggested that mortality was rising for middle-aged white Americans, citing suicides, drug overdoses, and alcohol, collectively sometimes referred to as “deaths of despair.” Women have been particularly affected. What America then is seeing is not that old people, retirees, would die younger. It is seeing working-age people (not necessarily working people) die of unnatural causes.