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Lingering effects of the great recession. There is a very strong and well studied relationship between unemployment, economic stress, and drug abuse. These are

Lingering effects of the great recession. There is a very strong and well studied relationship between unemployment, economic stress, and drug abuse. These are people who are depressed (clinically, economically, or often both), and they are self medicating. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessness-and-opioids/523281/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935688/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935688/ Unfortunately the media-driven obsession with this topic is focused on everything other than the underlying problems driving the abuse, which is a guaranteed way to never solve anything.

theparanoid 9y ago
An equivalent (but more so) case was the Russian decline in life expectancy during the 90s for the same reasons.
akhatri_aus 9y ago
During the Great Depression though, life expectancy rose - especially during the dust bowl.
- hfourm 9y ago
  This could just be because the rate of improved quality of life (access to food, medicine, medical improvement) was exponentially increasing compared to the offset of the economic depression.
forapurpose 9y ago
> Lingering effects of the great recession Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Also, the problem started in the last couple of years while the Great Recession began in 2008 (EDIT: and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years).
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Other countries (in the developed world at least) don't do as a shitty job dealing with welfare and healthcare, or have people feel like shit for not being "winners". >and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years) Unemployment is the easiest thing for government to sweep under the carpet. Heck, if they could fully get their way, working 12hours/day for $1/month would still qualify as employment. Even so: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/great-recession-still-with-us/547268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/great-r... Or: Economist Logan said that when he looks back, he sees a permanently changed economy. The downturn "left a lingering impact on jobs and on some sectors that never recovered," he said. For example, just before the recession, about 14 million Americans worked in manufacturing; today, that sector has about 1.5 million fewer jobs. And millions of families saw their home equity wiped away in foreclosures, Logan said. "A lot of people lost their jobs and their net worth. And then they had to take a lower paying job. ... It was a blow that they never recovered from," he said. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/14/570556990/unhappy-10th-anniversary-great-recession-you-still-hurt-us https://www.npr.org/2017/12/14/570556990/unhappy-10th-annive... https://www.salon.com/2017/11/21/the-great-recession-is-the-noose-that-hangs-around-millennials-necks/ https://www.salon.com/2017/11/21/the-great-recession-is-the-...
  - losteric 9y ago
    I'm not really familiar with the policies enacted towards recovery... How "hands on" was the government in kicking the economy back into gear? Did we do much beyond lowering interest rates? Many smaller manufacturing businesses both depended on selling to and buying from small impacted businesses... self-contained systems that keep money and management local. Restarting those economic ecosystems requires more than just lowering rates. Anecdotally, banking consolidations have made it much harder for niche local businesses to attract financing - the town where I went to college had its entire industry of small farming equipment manufacturers killed off. The big banks refused to finance a "John deer competitor" that built tractors from local parts manufacturers, even though the local farms despised buying from John Deer - their only presence was low-wage retail/repair jobs, extracting profit from the community.

theparanoid 9y ago

An equivalent (but more so) case was the Russian decline in life expectancy during the 90s for the same reasons.

akhatri_aus 9y ago

During the Great Depression though, life expectancy rose - especially during the dust bowl.

hfourm 9y ago
This could just be because the rate of improved quality of life (access to food, medicine, medical improvement) was exponentially increasing compared to the offset of the economic depression.

forapurpose 9y ago

> Lingering effects of the great recession Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Also, the problem started in the last couple of years while the Great Recession began in 2008 (EDIT: and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years).

coldtea 9y ago
>Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Other countries (in the developed world at least) don't do as a shitty job dealing with welfare and healthcare, or have people feel like shit for not being "winners". >and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years) Unemployment is the easiest thing for government to sweep under the carpet. Heck, if they could fully get their way, working 12hours/day for $1/month would still qualify as employment. Even so: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/great-recession-still-with-us/547268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/great-r... Or: Economist Logan said that when he looks back, he sees a permanently changed economy. The downturn "left a lingering impact on jobs and on some sectors that never recovered," he said. For example, just before the recession, about 14 million Americans worked in manufacturing; today, that sector has about 1.5 million fewer jobs. And millions of families saw their home equity wiped away in foreclosures, Logan said. "A lot of people lost their jobs and their net worth. And then they had to take a lower paying job. ... It was a blow that they never recovered from," he said. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/14/570556990/unhappy-10th-anniversary-great-recession-you-still-hurt-us https://www.npr.org/2017/12/14/570556990/unhappy-10th-annive... https://www.salon.com/2017/11/21/the-great-recession-is-the-noose-that-hangs-around-millennials-necks/ https://www.salon.com/2017/11/21/the-great-recession-is-the-...
- losteric 9y ago
  I'm not really familiar with the policies enacted towards recovery... How "hands on" was the government in kicking the economy back into gear? Did we do much beyond lowering interest rates? Many smaller manufacturing businesses both depended on selling to and buying from small impacted businesses... self-contained systems that keep money and management local. Restarting those economic ecosystems requires more than just lowering rates. Anecdotally, banking consolidations have made it much harder for niche local businesses to attract financing - the town where I went to college had its entire industry of small farming equipment manufacturers killed off. The big banks refused to finance a "John deer competitor" that built tractors from local parts manufacturers, even though the local farms despised buying from John Deer - their only presence was low-wage retail/repair jobs, extracting profit from the community.