"The data are clear: Life is getting harder and harder for Americans
without college degrees. People with a high-school education or less
tend to face worse economic prospects and have poorer health," Sarah Brown reports for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The increase in mortality among middle-aged white Americans who don't have a college degree is primarily due to "deaths of despair" caused by alcohol, drugs and suicide, according to researchers at Princeton University. President Trump won 67 percent of white voters without a college degree, a demographic that can be a rough analogue for rural America, and he performed particularly well in counties with the highest mortality rates from these deaths of despair.
Is the despair connected to why people voted for Trump? Brown went to Missouri's rural Bootheel to find out what the locals thought. In Dunklin County, where only 10 percent of adults have a 4-year degree, 76 percent of voters went for Trump. The life expectancy there is 72.6 years, 6.5 years less than the national average. Because of job losses in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors over the past few decades, more people are relying on government assistance.
Brown talked to several people who expressed disdain for people who receive public aid because they're "too lazy to work." One man, David Ross, said that he has open positions at his trucking and excavation company that he can't fill. "If there were less government assistance, he says, maybe more people would be forced to take the jobs that are available, even if the work isn’t glamorous," Brown reports.
The county was devastated in 2006 when Emerson Electric Co., its largest employer, closed its plant in the county seat of Kennett. Many of the jobs went to Mexico., so Trump's emphasis on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. resonated in Dunklin.
Some locals noted that those who go to college don't tend to come back, since there are no high-skill jobs available in the area, so boosting college attendance among small-town teenagers isn't a cure-all for rural America's woes. Many rural high schools lack the resources to offer Advanced Placement courses that can help prepare them for college and possibly earn course credit. In Illinois, a new program will help 75 students at 10 rural high schools take AP courses, The Associated Press reports. If the program is successful, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, who leads the Governor's Rural Affairs Council, says the program may expand.
The increase in mortality among middle-aged white Americans who don't have a college degree is primarily due to "deaths of despair" caused by alcohol, drugs and suicide, according to researchers at Princeton University. President Trump won 67 percent of white voters without a college degree, a demographic that can be a rough analogue for rural America, and he performed particularly well in counties with the highest mortality rates from these deaths of despair.
 |
| Dunklin County (Wikipedia map) |
Brown talked to several people who expressed disdain for people who receive public aid because they're "too lazy to work." One man, David Ross, said that he has open positions at his trucking and excavation company that he can't fill. "If there were less government assistance, he says, maybe more people would be forced to take the jobs that are available, even if the work isn’t glamorous," Brown reports.
The county was devastated in 2006 when Emerson Electric Co., its largest employer, closed its plant in the county seat of Kennett. Many of the jobs went to Mexico., so Trump's emphasis on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. resonated in Dunklin.
Some locals noted that those who go to college don't tend to come back, since there are no high-skill jobs available in the area, so boosting college attendance among small-town teenagers isn't a cure-all for rural America's woes. Many rural high schools lack the resources to offer Advanced Placement courses that can help prepare them for college and possibly earn course credit. In Illinois, a new program will help 75 students at 10 rural high schools take AP courses, The Associated Press reports. If the program is successful, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, who leads the Governor's Rural Affairs Council, says the program may expand.
No comments:
Post a Comment