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U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

82 points by harambae 3y ago

alexfromapex 3y ago
[flagged]
- reaperman 3y ago
  Statements like this need more of a thesis. There are not enough details in your comment to have any kind of a productive, non-flamebait discussion.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    To me, putting them in there place could mean: - Revoke their "personhood" - Tax them appropriately - Prevent them from being too big to fail - Hold their officers accountable - Prevent them from hiring public officials But I'm open to other ideas!
    - lordnacho 3y ago
      Let them die more easily. They are immortal after all, there should be a lower threshold for letting them die if they do something wrong.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      You also have to explain: - your concerns about the current status quo, - how these are causing the current status quo and - explain what you believe are the expected effects. It's an internet comment, not an academic essay, so you can just refer to things -- but you're in a diverse forum where most people aren't going to instantly recall the established zeitgeist you're trying to evoke. Many of us aren't familiar with your zeitgeist, so sparse references to it mean nothing to us. I have no idea what you mean by "citizenship". I don't know what problems this is causing, what the change would look like, and why that would be expected to improve the problem.
    - survirtual 3y ago
      I would add many more, but a big one: - significantly diminish limited liability. If your corp causes a chemical spill that kills many people, the executives should be put on trial for mass murder. This change creates a large incentive to do the right thing -- like not implicitly killing. These corporations are not people. They are run by people. We need to start holding those people accountable for their actions. We need to start naming them and attaching their names to the disasters they are causing. If you are the head of an oil company when a massive spill occurs, not only should you live in poverty for the rest of your life, but you should probably be in a jail cell for the rest of your life as well for being a danger to society in the pursuit of personal riches. If we can throw people in prison for carrying certain rocks for all their life, I think this is more than reasonable.
  - starfallg 3y ago
    I'm not OP, but it's quite obvious where the issues are. Overturning Citizens United is probably the first port of call.
  - roody15 3y ago
    Corporations are no longer beholden to governmental and regulatory bodies. Educational institutions, news agencies, etc simply echo corporate approved information. Watch 60 minutes and see a “news” story that is really just an info commercial for a new weight loss drug presented as journalism. The public discourse is now dominated by corporate safe “progressive” topics. Race, gender, identity .. etc all safe.. progressive issues like unions, wealth inequality, bank reforms … nope those are not okay. It’s depressing because faith is waning in the U.S. as a society and as a government. Just my two cent ramble
    - reaperman 3y ago
      > Watch 60 minutes and see a “news” story that is really just an info commercial for a new weight loss drug presented as journalism. This has existed since TV was originally invented. Ads used to be content...and often still is. I hate it too but I'm not sure this is what I'd point to for "A-ha! Here's the reason depression is suddenly skyrocketing!", when it's been true for 70 years running.
  - lisper 3y ago
    OK, I'll give you a data point. Six years ago I went to work for a small (~100 employee) startup. Three years ago that startup was acquired by Intel, so for the last three years I've been an Intel employee. Last January Intel cancelled my project and laid me off. So here I am at 58, seven years from retirement, unemployed, not because I was lazy or bad at my job, but because people I've never laid eyes on, people whose names I don't know, people who don't even know I exist, decided they needed to cut costs. And because I'm 58 and ageism is a real thing in this industry, the odds of anyone else hiring me are very low. 58 is awfully late in life to be forced to start over. The problem with corporations is that by design they provide a virtually impenetrable barrier between one set of humans (the owners of the corporation) and another set of humans (the employees). This has benefits, of course, but it also has one very serious drawback, which is that it allows the first set of humans to treat the second set like a commodity, no different from wheat or pork bellies, but not the other way around. This asymmetry disempowers employees, robs them of their agency and personhood. And all this happens by design. It really should come as no surprise to anyone that one of the side effects of this system is a lot of depressed people.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  How does that follow? The implication is that the USA would have less depression if there were no corporations. I disagree.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    As much as I disagree with engaging with GP's non-comment, I also don't think this is really steel-manning their assumed point-of-view. Likely they are thinking of a society where corporations are "different" rather than "abolished".
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      Though you are correct, any sufficiently "different" type of corporation, I would argue is no longer a corporation in the sense we are referring to now.
    - aww_dang 3y ago
      I'm not a mind reader so it is hard to identify their POV, but it matches a popular brand of political sloganeering. In the context of depression, I think it is may be easier for people to project their unhappiness upon these faraway and indistinct entities outside of their control rather than deal with what might be the more immediate causes of their unhappiness. From that point perhaps it is worth asking if this brand of political sloganeering is empowering individuals or using a victimhood narrative to advance a political cause.
      - skinnymuch 3y ago
        We live in a right wing world right now with the USA as the center of right wing capitalism. Trying to blame individuals is a common tactic in the current status quo.
  - skinnymuch 3y ago
    If corporations were at least like Mondragon Corporation, the US would be a lot farther. I’m not sure what you mean by no corporations or why that is an implication. China and other countries put corporations in their place all the time.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Could you be a bit more specific about how the corporations are causing depression in the people of the US? Too much social media? Too much advertising? Too low wages? Meaningless work? What, specifically, are corporations doing that is causing this? I'm not sure you're wrong, but you need more detail for me to be convinced that you're right...
- ryan93 3y ago
  Strong claim. Bet it has more to do with trends like polarization or housing costs or something. Most corporations are providing absurdly cheap goods and decent jobs.
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    Corporations lobby/bribe politicians to implement laws and polities that negatively impact their constituents. The rest of the world has a single-payer healthcare system that is cheaper and better than what we have. Why? Because the healthcare industry has advertized and lobby'd for it to remain as it is. Most corporations provide "decent jobs" to a limited subset of people. The vast majority of people are not making 100k/year.
- aww_dang 3y ago
  Ultimately individuals are responsible for their own emotions. There are unjust elements in society and there have always been unjust elements in society. Where you lay the blame is besides the point in this discussion about depression. People need more effective coping mechanisms. Even with little to no money, happiness is possible for people around the world. Why then is one of the world's richest and most productive economies facing rising depression rates?
  - meitham 3y ago
    Would you say the same to a black enslaved man in the 18th century? Or to a Jewish awaiting his death in a nazi concentration prison? Or to a Palestinian deported from his home? There can always be rules or laws that are directly responsible to people suffering and depression.
    - aww_dang 3y ago
      No, I wouldn't say that at all. I wouldn't compare working in an Amazon fulfillment center or delivering Uber eats to those scenarios either. In either case I'd encourage the individual to uplift himself and transcend those problems. To accept that the world is unfair and to do something to better their life, regardless of the circumstances. In both cases I wouldn't say it is easy or belittle their struggles, but obviously escaping slavery is more difficult than many modern laments.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Ah, yes, the corporations are not in their place... The world was basically a dystopian hell for the non-elite class and only getting worse from the advent of agriculture until somewhat recently (see the Malthusian Trap)... But today is the worst because you can look back to sometime post-WW2 in the US (and only the US), where - for a few years - things maybe might have been slightly better if and only if you were a white man.
  - alexfromapex 3y ago
    You are conflating technology improving lives, which it usually does as time advances, with society improving. Society has arguably gotten worse, as things have just become more passively aggressive than outright aggressive as they were in the past.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      So you're saying it's worse that it's socially acceptable now for people to talk behind your back instead of enslave you?
- bequanna 3y ago
  I think it is easy to point out one issue like this and blame all of society's ills on it, however, it isn't that simple. There are many issues at play here. For example: extreme political divisiveness, decreasing real incomes, falling birth rates, increased competition due to globalization, doomscrolling ...and many others. If I personally had to pick the largest factor, I would blame social media induced anxiety/depression due to the personal issues that arise from comparing your life to the artificial portrayals. That and the dopamine addiction from tiktok, snapchat that causes people to withdraw from applying effort in the real world.
- derelicta 3y ago
  It's not just "corporatations" but capitalism as a whole that strips away any glimpse of hope from current working generations. As long as anywhere you go workplace dictatorships and parasitism are celebrated, and considered natural norms, how can folks project themselves in the future?
nofum 3y ago
Obvious lockdown residue. Could also be COVID itself but far fewer people were directly affected by that.
- lostcolony 3y ago
  Could also be the increased income disparity, the huge leap in housing costs without associated pay increase, the obvious inability of the US to change the direction it (and the world) is heading... I mean, it's rising most amongst young adults and minorities; given the political climate alone I can understand the correlation there.
  - nofum 3y ago
    Exactly, lockdowns caused a huge spike in precisely all those things. Income disparity skyrockets as the laptop class gets raises and stock bonuses while the servant class delivers their food while inflation skyrockets. Housing costs explode as the fixed supply in suburbia is swamped with urban exiles working remote and lockdowns cause supply chain disruptions.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
[flagged]
- lordloki 3y ago
  You should stay off reddit for a bit. Almost none of that is based in fact.
  - slater 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - NickC25 3y ago
    What about their statement is not based in fact? Back up your claims.
    - prottog 3y ago
      Not who you responded to, but I'll try and analyze GP's original points. It's up to you whether you decide this is sufficient evidence against the idea that certain demographics should be depressed given the present conditions. > Women have just experienced the most significant blow against their rights and personal freedoms in 50 years, combined with the intense pressure they're under to try to bring persistent sexual abuse into the light. The rise of near-total abortion bans in some states is regrettable ("near-total", since every state still has exceptions for threats to the mother's physical health), though I believe that there will be a lot of reversion to the mean over the next few years. No state has a majority of the population that supports a total or near-total ban. The GP may be surprised to learn, however, that on the subject of elective abortions, presumed socially liberal European countries like Denmark (12 weeks) or France (14 weeks) are closer to socially conservative states like Georgia (6 weeks) or South Carolina (20 weeks) than socially liberal states like Massachusetts (24 weeks) or Oregon (no limit). And of course, globally, fewer than half of all countries allow elective abortions at all. > Young adults are looking down the barrel of decreased job opportunity combined with crippling debt and rising cost of living. The median real (as in adjusted for inflation) income has been on an upward trend over the past few decades, with a local peak in 2019[0]. Crippling debt? The average undergrad leaves school with $33k in student loan debt[1], which is substantially less than the average new car purchase at $48k as of March 2023, and nobody calls the latter crippling. Do young people really have a greater debt burden? People 18-26 have the least debt out of all generational groups. Gen-Xers aged 43-58, hardly young, carry the most debt.[2] This all makes sense, since people accumulate more debt as they enter the middle of their lives buying homes and whatnot, and lose debt as they pay it off over time. > Black people have been trying to convince people not to disproportionately kill and oppress them, and are still experiencing significant pushback. Well, there's a lot to unpack here. Let me see if I can tackle GP's point in a few ways. First, "disproportionately" is basically a meaningless concept; literally everything is disproportionate, and one of the strangest facets of the modern social justice movement is the idea that every slice of life should reflect the overall composition of society. Over half of all NFL players are black; 0.1% are Asian[3]. Black people are "disproportionately" overemployed in barbershops and "disproportionately" underemployed in nail salons[4]; 85% of cab drivers and 90% of lumberjacks are men. Yet nobody's out there mustering public support for fewer black NFL players or more women cab drivers. This isn't limited to this country; anywhere in the world you care to look, whatever subset of the population you choose, you're bound to find disproportionate numbers, because different cultural subgroups have different preferences. Next, on the subject of black people "trying to convince people [...] not to kill and oppress them", I assume by that wording the GP meant police shootings and hate crimes committed by other races. The most comprehensive study on racial bias in police shootings to date was unable to find racial bias in fatal police shootings[6]. And the overwhelming majority of black homicide victims were killed by a black perpetrator[7]. Black people were "disproportionately" more likely to be a victim of race-motivated hate crimes[8] but also "disproportionately" more likely to be a perpetrator of hate crimes[9]. As for oppression, it's difficult to make the claim of systemic oppression of black people here and now in the present, when they are "disproportionately" more represented in the Supreme Court and about "proportionately" represented in the House of Representatives. Were black people systemically oppressed in the past? Absolutely, and even within living memory. Does that carry an effect to this day? Sure. Are there actual racists today? Yes, but likely not as many as GP thinks. Is the best way forward to apply present discrimination to address past discrimination, as is the current identitarian dogma? I certainly don't believe so, and I suppose that's what GP means by "pushback". [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. [1]: https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt [2]: https://www.creditkarma.com/insights/i/average-debt-by-age#average-total-debt-by-age-and-generation https://www.creditkarma.com/insights/i/average-debt-by-age#a... [3]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1167935/racial-diversity-nfl-players/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1167935/racial-diversity... [4]: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm [5]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [6]: https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/empirical-analysis-racial-differences-police-use-force https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/empirical-ana... [7]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... [8]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-1.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-1.xls [9]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-9.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-9.xls
206lol 3y ago
Economic uncertainty and exploitative labor practices, increasing wealth gap and decreasing wages? Seems like a recipe for depression.
GiorgioG 3y ago
In the last few years inflation has hurt the fuck out of all but the richest Americans. Financial stress leads to depression. Add both political parties are constantly telling us the other side is ruining everything and it's just piling it on. A recession is here/coming.
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  Why does the US have higher depression rates than any country in Africa then? Aren't there a lot of people there under financial stress?
  - ne0flex 3y ago
    My assumption would be that they have something to look forward to. Some parts of Africa have improved a lot over the years, whereas the US, for the most part, had it good and now is seeing it slowly decay in real time.
  - George83728 3y ago
    Just spitballing here, but a culture which focuses more on individualism, less emphasis on family and community. People disown their families over petty things like political differences, don't engage in their communities because they're shut up inside watching TV all day, then find themselves without social support networks to help when they're feeling down.
    - deprecative 3y ago
      >petty things like political differences To be fair, political differences are a result of moral and ethical ideology. It's fine to not involve yourself with someone whose ideology is antithetical to goodness as subjective as it may be for some. I will never understand someone who says political differences are petty. Thinking that the traffic light's hue of yellow is a shade too light or dark is petty. Thinking that pregnant women should die because the unviable fetus their carrying is more important than they are is not petty.
endisneigh 3y ago
I'm curious how much of this is related to doomerism and heightened access to the 24-hour news cycle.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  Perhaps it is related to doomerism getting more and more real?
  - avbanks 3y ago
    What period of time was less "doomy"?
    - NopeSlide 3y ago
      2011-2018 was pretty good, unless you were really invested in electoral politics
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  I have an unfounded theory that it's all related to our diet and the food we eat.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - carimura 3y ago
      I know people like this too. Trump is obviously a flashpoint, but is it really him or is it the constant media narratives being fed to us about "the other side" being a danger to our safety. Many folks on the right that I know have the same (but not to this extent) visceral reaction to say Biden, Newsom, etc.
      - sieongioetnio 3y ago
petercooper 3y ago
The rates of people diagnosed with depression. Things that were once taboos, had stigma attached to them, or were poorly defined may once have been more often kept under wraps. See ADHD or ASD diagnosis rates, for example.
- Julesman 3y ago
  Depression is not a disease for most people.
  - sgift 3y ago
    In the context of the article - and in most conversations - depression is short hand for "clinical depression" or "major depressive episode", i.e. the form where it is a disease, not the normal feeling of short-term depression after a bad event.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  History of left handedness: https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedness-in-the-us-stigma-society/ https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedn... Nothing caused the population of left handed people to soar. We just stopped hitting them in schools for using their left hands.
  - olalonde 3y ago
    Not a big fan of this comparison. Just because it was true of left-handedness doesn't mean it's true for other things. It also shows that hitting left-handed kids in schools was actually working, whereas it's not possible to "cure" depression or sexual orientation this way.
    - NopeSlide 3y ago
      Actually sexual orientation is fluid and can be adjusted through acclimatization, it's how pedophilia is treated, it just doesn't work on unwilling participants. People who are straight occasionally do become bi or gay, and vice versa.
boringg 3y ago
1. Media narratives and sites like reddit -> focusing on the extremes is robbing people of the qualities of the life around them. 2. Keeping up with the Jones per se in the world of social media really knocks people down.
- carimura 3y ago
  i'm sure it's a lot of factors but to your point one could look at this problem from a dozen angles and there's almost no way to conclude that social media and 24/7 race-to-bottom engagement model of news has been a net positive on our mental health.
  - themagician 3y ago
    Social media is destroying society, particularly among those “new” to the internet which is a bimodal distribution of those <30 and >60. There’s nothing special about those in the middle other than the context they may have for how we got here. You now have a situation where more than half the population doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake. It’s an, “I don’t know what I don’t know situation.” You can easily identify individuals who don’t know, because they still have a positive view of social media and say things like, “It really depends on how you use it and who you follow.” What has happened to the internet and social media sort of tortures me, because I spent about 15 years contributing to the current problem in not-so-insignificant ways. I feel dumb for not having had the foresight to see what was happening.
ikt 3y ago
they point to the pandemic as the source of the issue but rates have been rising significantly since 2011...
- nofum 3y ago
  Given the increase in 2020 alone was 3x the increase over the preceding 5 years, it appears to be a valid theory as to the source.
1-6 3y ago
I find it hard to detach from work and focus on my well-being. Work from home was convenient and necessary to a certain extent but I miss being able to get off the clock as soon as I left company doors at the end of the day.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  The in person jobs are the ones having issues recruiting, so it should be easier for you to change that situation than the opposite at least.
- lostcolony 3y ago
  I set up everything to basically turn off at 6. Close the work laptop, and either set up time based notifications for everything on my phone, or a work profile (Android) that I turn off. While meetings have had a tendency to spread out (due to more spread out teams and trying to make calendars work), so I have a bit less time detached, I still feel like I'm able to detach, even with my work area being the same as my personal PC (though I step away from that for a decent amount of time as well).
- andsoitis 3y ago
  Does your company have an office you can use?
- maegul 3y ago
  As nice as WFH is for many of us (or society at large), the truth is I think that many of us and society at large isn't really set up to do it well. For working from home to be balanced with also living at home, you need some physical separation and space so that work spaces and living spaces are easily compartmentalised. This requires bigger homes with probably some layout adjustments. Some will already have the homes for such things, but many, not at all. I always figured from the early days of the pandemic/WFH that distributed/decentralised workspaces would be a nice shift, so that most residential areas could have a not-too-distant workspace with no substantial commute. Then you decouple work's office location and/or personal home ammenities from your actual working conditions. Dunno if this is an actual thing or actually viable.
vorpalhex 3y ago
> Clinical depression had been slowly rising in the U.S. prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but has jumped notably in its wake. That finger points at the social isolation hypothesis (though is obviously not hard proof). I wonder if social media is to socializing what fake sugars are to real. It occupies the same sort of space without the benefits, and is more desirable on the surface while generally being worse for you. It's a discount but more easily obtained substitute.
kayodelycaon 3y ago
[flagged]
- thelopa 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - athinggoingon 3y ago
    As a middle easterner who has lived all over the world, you sound like someone who has never traveled outside of your cocoon of a bubble.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    This is a perfect example of first-world privilege in display. I'm really jealous that people live in such good places that anti-queer rhetoric is their major problem.
  - ashleyn 3y ago
    Moving to a heavily blue state may be a better and far cheaper option, they are holding the pro-queer line for the time being. Judging historically on blue states' treatment of some other issues like immigration, I don't expect them to cooperate with any anti-queer laws on the federal level.
    - prottog 3y ago
      > Judging historically on blue states' treatment of some other issues like immigration Blue states don't have a great history on those other issues, either. Oregon literally prohibited black people from entering its territory. The last Major League Baseball team to integrate was the Red Sox. A quarter of all present-day blue states have never elected a black person to the House of Representatives, and another quarter have only ever elected one. Actually, even today, most professional athletes point to Boston as the most racist city they'll play in. "Sanctuary cities" in blue states like Chicago and NYC are pushing refugees out to the comparatively redder suburbs right now. In the meantime, college-educated black people are moving back to the South. Point being, differences are only felt in the extreme margins; red states and blue states are just the difference of 49% vs. 51% one direction or another on almost every divisive issue.
rib3ye 3y ago
Probably a vastly unpopular opinion in HN but don’t we think sitting at home alone all day, working remote, could be related? Humans evolved to be physically social, is 100% remote really the right direction for American society?
- higeorge13 3y ago
  Besides the hn/tech bubble, what percentage of people work remote jobs? Probably 0% according to my circle (in Greece). Is it different in the US?
- cm2012 3y ago
  Less than 20% of Americans wfh (we are in a white collar bubble), would have to be an insane effect size.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  Most Americans don't work from home, but social isolation is increasing.
- bilsbie 3y ago
  I just think we need more coworking though and field offices. Commutes need to die.
- viraptor 3y ago
  Working remotely doesn't make you sit at home all day. It doesn't force you to not socialise either (at work or after). The way the work is organised and other factors that make home and surroundings not social for many people may be a factor. But looking at the remote work specifically here feels like holding the wrong end of the stick. (source: Working remotely, having nice chats with coworkers, inviting others once a week to my home for work, meeting people otherwise)
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Probably true for people whose work is their primary source of social interaction which might be the bigger issue. Maybe it's the way we live that's against our nature, not the way we work.
0zemp2c 3y ago
no exercise, ever + crappy diet + addicted to porn = depression surprised? fix those three, depression will vanish pills will not fix it your therapist is incentivized to keep you "sick"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
shipscode 3y ago
Maybe running people out of their jobs for not getting an experimental drug that is no longer recommended in most working age Americans was bad public policy?
andyfos 3y ago
This may be due to the excessive use of antidepressants, which can inadvertently exacerbate depression, transforming a temporary episode of sadness into a long-lasting and severe condition. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428926/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428926/
- Mezzie 3y ago
  Oh look, it's me. (I started the SNRI for non mental health reasons but it fucked me up good.)
tivert 3y ago
I propose we accelerate and amplify current social changes. The only solution is more. /s
- NopeSlide 3y ago
  calm down nick land
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    Praise GNON!
ultra_nick 3y ago
People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. Strangers raise our kids. Affordable small houses are no longer built. There're few legal or free places to rest. The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. Poverty is the cause. The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates and reduce outsourcing.
- account42 3y ago
  > People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. It's really absurd how accepted/unnoticed this regression is. And of course it also makes the isolation problem worse as now single person households will be able to afford even less.
  - Mezzie 3y ago
    And those of us who have to be breadwinners are not in a good spot. I'm responsible for an adult who's bipolar and can't hold down a job. Supporting multiple people on a single income is absurdly difficult right now. And many families with children are in a no win scenario where they either make due with a single income or one parents' income is completely eaten by child care.
- m_fayer 3y ago
  I support UBI but it’s not in the cards any time soon, fine. Then, we should aim for one overarching economic policy target: most people should be able to land a job that would enable them to generously house, feed and equip one adult and several children without working themselves to the bone. This should include a reasonable amount of leisure and luxuries, and a thorough safety net. How to achieve this? I’m not sure. I’m open to ideas from all sides of the political spectrum as long as the goal is achieved. This should really be our bare minimum, if we’re going to insist on thinking of ourselves as an advanced society. Short of that, I truly don’t know what all of this is really for.
  - danaris 3y ago
taylodl 3y ago
We would expect depression rates to reach new highs in late state capitalism, would we not? I thought we all understood things were going to get worse before they get better? This is similar to getting concerned why so many men having stage IV, terminal cancer are losing their hair. We know why. We also know Rogaine isn't going to help. To me this is related to the other article on HN earlier today about the dramatic decrease in birthrates since 2007. They're all symptoms of a society in decline.

82 points by harambae 3y ago

alexfromapex 3y ago

[flagged]

reaperman 3y ago
Statements like this need more of a thesis. There are not enough details in your comment to have any kind of a productive, non-flamebait discussion.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  To me, putting them in there place could mean: - Revoke their "personhood" - Tax them appropriately - Prevent them from being too big to fail - Hold their officers accountable - Prevent them from hiring public officials But I'm open to other ideas!
  - lordnacho 3y ago
    Let them die more easily. They are immortal after all, there should be a lower threshold for letting them die if they do something wrong.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    You also have to explain: - your concerns about the current status quo, - how these are causing the current status quo and - explain what you believe are the expected effects. It's an internet comment, not an academic essay, so you can just refer to things -- but you're in a diverse forum where most people aren't going to instantly recall the established zeitgeist you're trying to evoke. Many of us aren't familiar with your zeitgeist, so sparse references to it mean nothing to us. I have no idea what you mean by "citizenship". I don't know what problems this is causing, what the change would look like, and why that would be expected to improve the problem.
  - survirtual 3y ago
    I would add many more, but a big one: - significantly diminish limited liability. If your corp causes a chemical spill that kills many people, the executives should be put on trial for mass murder. This change creates a large incentive to do the right thing -- like not implicitly killing. These corporations are not people. They are run by people. We need to start holding those people accountable for their actions. We need to start naming them and attaching their names to the disasters they are causing. If you are the head of an oil company when a massive spill occurs, not only should you live in poverty for the rest of your life, but you should probably be in a jail cell for the rest of your life as well for being a danger to society in the pursuit of personal riches. If we can throw people in prison for carrying certain rocks for all their life, I think this is more than reasonable.
- starfallg 3y ago
  I'm not OP, but it's quite obvious where the issues are. Overturning Citizens United is probably the first port of call.
- roody15 3y ago
  Corporations are no longer beholden to governmental and regulatory bodies. Educational institutions, news agencies, etc simply echo corporate approved information. Watch 60 minutes and see a “news” story that is really just an info commercial for a new weight loss drug presented as journalism. The public discourse is now dominated by corporate safe “progressive” topics. Race, gender, identity .. etc all safe.. progressive issues like unions, wealth inequality, bank reforms … nope those are not okay. It’s depressing because faith is waning in the U.S. as a society and as a government. Just my two cent ramble
  - reaperman 3y ago
    > Watch 60 minutes and see a “news” story that is really just an info commercial for a new weight loss drug presented as journalism. This has existed since TV was originally invented. Ads used to be content...and often still is. I hate it too but I'm not sure this is what I'd point to for "A-ha! Here's the reason depression is suddenly skyrocketing!", when it's been true for 70 years running.
- lisper 3y ago
  OK, I'll give you a data point. Six years ago I went to work for a small (~100 employee) startup. Three years ago that startup was acquired by Intel, so for the last three years I've been an Intel employee. Last January Intel cancelled my project and laid me off. So here I am at 58, seven years from retirement, unemployed, not because I was lazy or bad at my job, but because people I've never laid eyes on, people whose names I don't know, people who don't even know I exist, decided they needed to cut costs. And because I'm 58 and ageism is a real thing in this industry, the odds of anyone else hiring me are very low. 58 is awfully late in life to be forced to start over. The problem with corporations is that by design they provide a virtually impenetrable barrier between one set of humans (the owners of the corporation) and another set of humans (the employees). This has benefits, of course, but it also has one very serious drawback, which is that it allows the first set of humans to treat the second set like a commodity, no different from wheat or pork bellies, but not the other way around. This asymmetry disempowers employees, robs them of their agency and personhood. And all this happens by design. It really should come as no surprise to anyone that one of the side effects of this system is a lot of depressed people.
endisneigh 3y ago
How does that follow? The implication is that the USA would have less depression if there were no corporations. I disagree.
- reaperman 3y ago
  As much as I disagree with engaging with GP's non-comment, I also don't think this is really steel-manning their assumed point-of-view. Likely they are thinking of a society where corporations are "different" rather than "abolished".
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Though you are correct, any sufficiently "different" type of corporation, I would argue is no longer a corporation in the sense we are referring to now.
  - aww_dang 3y ago
    I'm not a mind reader so it is hard to identify their POV, but it matches a popular brand of political sloganeering. In the context of depression, I think it is may be easier for people to project their unhappiness upon these faraway and indistinct entities outside of their control rather than deal with what might be the more immediate causes of their unhappiness. From that point perhaps it is worth asking if this brand of political sloganeering is empowering individuals or using a victimhood narrative to advance a political cause.
    - skinnymuch 3y ago
      We live in a right wing world right now with the USA as the center of right wing capitalism. Trying to blame individuals is a common tactic in the current status quo.
- skinnymuch 3y ago
  If corporations were at least like Mondragon Corporation, the US would be a lot farther. I’m not sure what you mean by no corporations or why that is an implication. China and other countries put corporations in their place all the time.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Could you be a bit more specific about how the corporations are causing depression in the people of the US? Too much social media? Too much advertising? Too low wages? Meaningless work? What, specifically, are corporations doing that is causing this? I'm not sure you're wrong, but you need more detail for me to be convinced that you're right...
ryan93 3y ago
Strong claim. Bet it has more to do with trends like polarization or housing costs or something. Most corporations are providing absurdly cheap goods and decent jobs.
- GiorgioG 3y ago
  Corporations lobby/bribe politicians to implement laws and polities that negatively impact their constituents. The rest of the world has a single-payer healthcare system that is cheaper and better than what we have. Why? Because the healthcare industry has advertized and lobby'd for it to remain as it is. Most corporations provide "decent jobs" to a limited subset of people. The vast majority of people are not making 100k/year.
aww_dang 3y ago
Ultimately individuals are responsible for their own emotions. There are unjust elements in society and there have always been unjust elements in society. Where you lay the blame is besides the point in this discussion about depression. People need more effective coping mechanisms. Even with little to no money, happiness is possible for people around the world. Why then is one of the world's richest and most productive economies facing rising depression rates?
- meitham 3y ago
  Would you say the same to a black enslaved man in the 18th century? Or to a Jewish awaiting his death in a nazi concentration prison? Or to a Palestinian deported from his home? There can always be rules or laws that are directly responsible to people suffering and depression.
  - aww_dang 3y ago
    No, I wouldn't say that at all. I wouldn't compare working in an Amazon fulfillment center or delivering Uber eats to those scenarios either. In either case I'd encourage the individual to uplift himself and transcend those problems. To accept that the world is unfair and to do something to better their life, regardless of the circumstances. In both cases I wouldn't say it is easy or belittle their struggles, but obviously escaping slavery is more difficult than many modern laments.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Ah, yes, the corporations are not in their place... The world was basically a dystopian hell for the non-elite class and only getting worse from the advent of agriculture until somewhat recently (see the Malthusian Trap)... But today is the worst because you can look back to sometime post-WW2 in the US (and only the US), where - for a few years - things maybe might have been slightly better if and only if you were a white man.
- alexfromapex 3y ago
  You are conflating technology improving lives, which it usually does as time advances, with society improving. Society has arguably gotten worse, as things have just become more passively aggressive than outright aggressive as they were in the past.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    So you're saying it's worse that it's socially acceptable now for people to talk behind your back instead of enslave you?
bequanna 3y ago
I think it is easy to point out one issue like this and blame all of society's ills on it, however, it isn't that simple. There are many issues at play here. For example: extreme political divisiveness, decreasing real incomes, falling birth rates, increased competition due to globalization, doomscrolling ...and many others. If I personally had to pick the largest factor, I would blame social media induced anxiety/depression due to the personal issues that arise from comparing your life to the artificial portrayals. That and the dopamine addiction from tiktok, snapchat that causes people to withdraw from applying effort in the real world.
derelicta 3y ago
It's not just "corporatations" but capitalism as a whole that strips away any glimpse of hope from current working generations. As long as anywhere you go workplace dictatorships and parasitism are celebrated, and considered natural norms, how can folks project themselves in the future?

nofum 3y ago

Obvious lockdown residue. Could also be COVID itself but far fewer people were directly affected by that.

lostcolony 3y ago
Could also be the increased income disparity, the huge leap in housing costs without associated pay increase, the obvious inability of the US to change the direction it (and the world) is heading... I mean, it's rising most amongst young adults and minorities; given the political climate alone I can understand the correlation there.
- nofum 3y ago
  Exactly, lockdowns caused a huge spike in precisely all those things. Income disparity skyrockets as the laptop class gets raises and stock bonuses while the servant class delivers their food while inflation skyrockets. Housing costs explode as the fixed supply in suburbia is swamped with urban exiles working remote and lockdowns cause supply chain disruptions.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

[flagged]

lordloki 3y ago
You should stay off reddit for a bit. Almost none of that is based in fact.
- slater 3y ago
  [flagged]
- NickC25 3y ago
  What about their statement is not based in fact? Back up your claims.
  - prottog 3y ago
    Not who you responded to, but I'll try and analyze GP's original points. It's up to you whether you decide this is sufficient evidence against the idea that certain demographics should be depressed given the present conditions. > Women have just experienced the most significant blow against their rights and personal freedoms in 50 years, combined with the intense pressure they're under to try to bring persistent sexual abuse into the light. The rise of near-total abortion bans in some states is regrettable ("near-total", since every state still has exceptions for threats to the mother's physical health), though I believe that there will be a lot of reversion to the mean over the next few years. No state has a majority of the population that supports a total or near-total ban. The GP may be surprised to learn, however, that on the subject of elective abortions, presumed socially liberal European countries like Denmark (12 weeks) or France (14 weeks) are closer to socially conservative states like Georgia (6 weeks) or South Carolina (20 weeks) than socially liberal states like Massachusetts (24 weeks) or Oregon (no limit). And of course, globally, fewer than half of all countries allow elective abortions at all. > Young adults are looking down the barrel of decreased job opportunity combined with crippling debt and rising cost of living. The median real (as in adjusted for inflation) income has been on an upward trend over the past few decades, with a local peak in 2019[0]. Crippling debt? The average undergrad leaves school with $33k in student loan debt[1], which is substantially less than the average new car purchase at $48k as of March 2023, and nobody calls the latter crippling. Do young people really have a greater debt burden? People 18-26 have the least debt out of all generational groups. Gen-Xers aged 43-58, hardly young, carry the most debt.[2] This all makes sense, since people accumulate more debt as they enter the middle of their lives buying homes and whatnot, and lose debt as they pay it off over time. > Black people have been trying to convince people not to disproportionately kill and oppress them, and are still experiencing significant pushback. Well, there's a lot to unpack here. Let me see if I can tackle GP's point in a few ways. First, "disproportionately" is basically a meaningless concept; literally everything is disproportionate, and one of the strangest facets of the modern social justice movement is the idea that every slice of life should reflect the overall composition of society. Over half of all NFL players are black; 0.1% are Asian[3]. Black people are "disproportionately" overemployed in barbershops and "disproportionately" underemployed in nail salons[4]; 85% of cab drivers and 90% of lumberjacks are men. Yet nobody's out there mustering public support for fewer black NFL players or more women cab drivers. This isn't limited to this country; anywhere in the world you care to look, whatever subset of the population you choose, you're bound to find disproportionate numbers, because different cultural subgroups have different preferences. Next, on the subject of black people "trying to convince people [...] not to kill and oppress them", I assume by that wording the GP meant police shootings and hate crimes committed by other races. The most comprehensive study on racial bias in police shootings to date was unable to find racial bias in fatal police shootings[6]. And the overwhelming majority of black homicide victims were killed by a black perpetrator[7]. Black people were "disproportionately" more likely to be a victim of race-motivated hate crimes[8] but also "disproportionately" more likely to be a perpetrator of hate crimes[9]. As for oppression, it's difficult to make the claim of systemic oppression of black people here and now in the present, when they are "disproportionately" more represented in the Supreme Court and about "proportionately" represented in the House of Representatives. Were black people systemically oppressed in the past? Absolutely, and even within living memory. Does that carry an effect to this day? Sure. Are there actual racists today? Yes, but likely not as many as GP thinks. Is the best way forward to apply present discrimination to address past discrimination, as is the current identitarian dogma? I certainly don't believe so, and I suppose that's what GP means by "pushback". [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. [1]: https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt [2]: https://www.creditkarma.com/insights/i/average-debt-by-age#average-total-debt-by-age-and-generation https://www.creditkarma.com/insights/i/average-debt-by-age#a... [3]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1167935/racial-diversity-nfl-players/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1167935/racial-diversity... [4]: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm [5]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [6]: https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/empirical-analysis-racial-differences-police-use-force https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/empirical-ana... [7]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... [8]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-1.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-1.xls [9]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-9.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/tables/table-9.xls

206lol 3y ago

Economic uncertainty and exploitative labor practices, increasing wealth gap and decreasing wages? Seems like a recipe for depression.

GiorgioG 3y ago

In the last few years inflation has hurt the fuck out of all but the richest Americans. Financial stress leads to depression. Add both political parties are constantly telling us the other side is ruining everything and it's just piling it on. A recession is here/coming.

oh_sigh 3y ago
Why does the US have higher depression rates than any country in Africa then? Aren't there a lot of people there under financial stress?
- ne0flex 3y ago
  My assumption would be that they have something to look forward to. Some parts of Africa have improved a lot over the years, whereas the US, for the most part, had it good and now is seeing it slowly decay in real time.
- George83728 3y ago
  Just spitballing here, but a culture which focuses more on individualism, less emphasis on family and community. People disown their families over petty things like political differences, don't engage in their communities because they're shut up inside watching TV all day, then find themselves without social support networks to help when they're feeling down.
  - deprecative 3y ago
    >petty things like political differences To be fair, political differences are a result of moral and ethical ideology. It's fine to not involve yourself with someone whose ideology is antithetical to goodness as subjective as it may be for some. I will never understand someone who says political differences are petty. Thinking that the traffic light's hue of yellow is a shade too light or dark is petty. Thinking that pregnant women should die because the unviable fetus their carrying is more important than they are is not petty.

endisneigh 3y ago

I'm curious how much of this is related to doomerism and heightened access to the 24-hour news cycle.

jackmott42 3y ago
Perhaps it is related to doomerism getting more and more real?
- avbanks 3y ago
  What period of time was less "doomy"?
  - NopeSlide 3y ago
    2011-2018 was pretty good, unless you were really invested in electoral politics
candiddevmike 3y ago
I have an unfounded theory that it's all related to our diet and the food we eat.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - carimura 3y ago
    I know people like this too. Trump is obviously a flashpoint, but is it really him or is it the constant media narratives being fed to us about "the other side" being a danger to our safety. Many folks on the right that I know have the same (but not to this extent) visceral reaction to say Biden, Newsom, etc.
    - sieongioetnio 3y ago

petercooper 3y ago

The rates of people diagnosed with depression. Things that were once taboos, had stigma attached to them, or were poorly defined may once have been more often kept under wraps. See ADHD or ASD diagnosis rates, for example.

Julesman 3y ago
Depression is not a disease for most people.
- sgift 3y ago
  In the context of the article - and in most conversations - depression is short hand for "clinical depression" or "major depressive episode", i.e. the form where it is a disease, not the normal feeling of short-term depression after a bad event.
MattGaiser 3y ago
History of left handedness: https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedness-in-the-us-stigma-society/ https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedn... Nothing caused the population of left handed people to soar. We just stopped hitting them in schools for using their left hands.
- olalonde 3y ago
  Not a big fan of this comparison. Just because it was true of left-handedness doesn't mean it's true for other things. It also shows that hitting left-handed kids in schools was actually working, whereas it's not possible to "cure" depression or sexual orientation this way.
  - NopeSlide 3y ago
    Actually sexual orientation is fluid and can be adjusted through acclimatization, it's how pedophilia is treated, it just doesn't work on unwilling participants. People who are straight occasionally do become bi or gay, and vice versa.

boringg 3y ago

1. Media narratives and sites like reddit -> focusing on the extremes is robbing people of the qualities of the life around them. 2. Keeping up with the Jones per se in the world of social media really knocks people down.

carimura 3y ago
i'm sure it's a lot of factors but to your point one could look at this problem from a dozen angles and there's almost no way to conclude that social media and 24/7 race-to-bottom engagement model of news has been a net positive on our mental health.
- themagician 3y ago
  Social media is destroying society, particularly among those “new” to the internet which is a bimodal distribution of those <30 and >60. There’s nothing special about those in the middle other than the context they may have for how we got here. You now have a situation where more than half the population doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake. It’s an, “I don’t know what I don’t know situation.” You can easily identify individuals who don’t know, because they still have a positive view of social media and say things like, “It really depends on how you use it and who you follow.” What has happened to the internet and social media sort of tortures me, because I spent about 15 years contributing to the current problem in not-so-insignificant ways. I feel dumb for not having had the foresight to see what was happening.

ikt 3y ago

they point to the pandemic as the source of the issue but rates have been rising significantly since 2011...

nofum 3y ago
Given the increase in 2020 alone was 3x the increase over the preceding 5 years, it appears to be a valid theory as to the source.

1-6 3y ago

I find it hard to detach from work and focus on my well-being. Work from home was convenient and necessary to a certain extent but I miss being able to get off the clock as soon as I left company doors at the end of the day.

MattGaiser 3y ago
The in person jobs are the ones having issues recruiting, so it should be easier for you to change that situation than the opposite at least.
lostcolony 3y ago
I set up everything to basically turn off at 6. Close the work laptop, and either set up time based notifications for everything on my phone, or a work profile (Android) that I turn off. While meetings have had a tendency to spread out (due to more spread out teams and trying to make calendars work), so I have a bit less time detached, I still feel like I'm able to detach, even with my work area being the same as my personal PC (though I step away from that for a decent amount of time as well).
andsoitis 3y ago
Does your company have an office you can use?
maegul 3y ago
As nice as WFH is for many of us (or society at large), the truth is I think that many of us and society at large isn't really set up to do it well. For working from home to be balanced with also living at home, you need some physical separation and space so that work spaces and living spaces are easily compartmentalised. This requires bigger homes with probably some layout adjustments. Some will already have the homes for such things, but many, not at all. I always figured from the early days of the pandemic/WFH that distributed/decentralised workspaces would be a nice shift, so that most residential areas could have a not-too-distant workspace with no substantial commute. Then you decouple work's office location and/or personal home ammenities from your actual working conditions. Dunno if this is an actual thing or actually viable.

vorpalhex 3y ago

> Clinical depression had been slowly rising in the U.S. prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but has jumped notably in its wake. That finger points at the social isolation hypothesis (though is obviously not hard proof). I wonder if social media is to socializing what fake sugars are to real. It occupies the same sort of space without the benefits, and is more desirable on the surface while generally being worse for you. It's a discount but more easily obtained substitute.

kayodelycaon 3y ago

[flagged]

thelopa 3y ago
[flagged]
- athinggoingon 3y ago
  As a middle easterner who has lived all over the world, you sound like someone who has never traveled outside of your cocoon of a bubble.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- boeingUH60 3y ago
  This is a perfect example of first-world privilege in display. I'm really jealous that people live in such good places that anti-queer rhetoric is their major problem.
- ashleyn 3y ago
  Moving to a heavily blue state may be a better and far cheaper option, they are holding the pro-queer line for the time being. Judging historically on blue states' treatment of some other issues like immigration, I don't expect them to cooperate with any anti-queer laws on the federal level.
  - prottog 3y ago
    > Judging historically on blue states' treatment of some other issues like immigration Blue states don't have a great history on those other issues, either. Oregon literally prohibited black people from entering its territory. The last Major League Baseball team to integrate was the Red Sox. A quarter of all present-day blue states have never elected a black person to the House of Representatives, and another quarter have only ever elected one. Actually, even today, most professional athletes point to Boston as the most racist city they'll play in. "Sanctuary cities" in blue states like Chicago and NYC are pushing refugees out to the comparatively redder suburbs right now. In the meantime, college-educated black people are moving back to the South. Point being, differences are only felt in the extreme margins; red states and blue states are just the difference of 49% vs. 51% one direction or another on almost every divisive issue.

rib3ye 3y ago

Probably a vastly unpopular opinion in HN but don’t we think sitting at home alone all day, working remote, could be related? Humans evolved to be physically social, is 100% remote really the right direction for American society?

higeorge13 3y ago
Besides the hn/tech bubble, what percentage of people work remote jobs? Probably 0% according to my circle (in Greece). Is it different in the US?
cm2012 3y ago
Less than 20% of Americans wfh (we are in a white collar bubble), would have to be an insane effect size.
ch4s3 3y ago
Most Americans don't work from home, but social isolation is increasing.
bilsbie 3y ago
I just think we need more coworking though and field offices. Commutes need to die.
viraptor 3y ago
Working remotely doesn't make you sit at home all day. It doesn't force you to not socialise either (at work or after). The way the work is organised and other factors that make home and surroundings not social for many people may be a factor. But looking at the remote work specifically here feels like holding the wrong end of the stick. (source: Working remotely, having nice chats with coworkers, inviting others once a week to my home for work, meeting people otherwise)
barbazoo 3y ago
Probably true for people whose work is their primary source of social interaction which might be the bigger issue. Maybe it's the way we live that's against our nature, not the way we work.

0zemp2c 3y ago

no exercise, ever + crappy diet + addicted to porn = depression surprised? fix those three, depression will vanish pills will not fix it your therapist is incentivized to keep you "sick"

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

shipscode 3y ago

Maybe running people out of their jobs for not getting an experimental drug that is no longer recommended in most working age Americans was bad public policy?

andyfos 3y ago

This may be due to the excessive use of antidepressants, which can inadvertently exacerbate depression, transforming a temporary episode of sadness into a long-lasting and severe condition. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428926/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428926/

Mezzie 3y ago
Oh look, it's me. (I started the SNRI for non mental health reasons but it fucked me up good.)

tivert 3y ago

I propose we accelerate and amplify current social changes. The only solution is more. /s

NopeSlide 3y ago
calm down nick land
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Praise GNON!

ultra_nick 3y ago

People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. Strangers raise our kids. Affordable small houses are no longer built. There're few legal or free places to rest. The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. Poverty is the cause. The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates and reduce outsourcing.

account42 3y ago
> People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. It's really absurd how accepted/unnoticed this regression is. And of course it also makes the isolation problem worse as now single person households will be able to afford even less.
- Mezzie 3y ago
  And those of us who have to be breadwinners are not in a good spot. I'm responsible for an adult who's bipolar and can't hold down a job. Supporting multiple people on a single income is absurdly difficult right now. And many families with children are in a no win scenario where they either make due with a single income or one parents' income is completely eaten by child care.
m_fayer 3y ago
I support UBI but it’s not in the cards any time soon, fine. Then, we should aim for one overarching economic policy target: most people should be able to land a job that would enable them to generously house, feed and equip one adult and several children without working themselves to the bone. This should include a reasonable amount of leisure and luxuries, and a thorough safety net. How to achieve this? I’m not sure. I’m open to ideas from all sides of the political spectrum as long as the goal is achieved. This should really be our bare minimum, if we’re going to insist on thinking of ourselves as an advanced society. Short of that, I truly don’t know what all of this is really for.
- danaris 3y ago

taylodl 3y ago

We would expect depression rates to reach new highs in late state capitalism, would we not? I thought we all understood things were going to get worse before they get better? This is similar to getting concerned why so many men having stage IV, terminal cancer are losing their hair. We know why. We also know Rogaine isn't going to help. To me this is related to the other article on HN earlier today about the dramatic decrease in birthrates since 2007. They're all symptoms of a society in decline.