Trump's Election and the Health of Middle-Aged White Workers
Back in June, soon after it became evident that Donald Trump
would be the Republican nominee for President, we wrote an article discussing
one significant aspect of his candidacy: his possible appeal to working class
voters who are exasperated by stagnant wages and income inequality. We didn’t advocate for him, but we did see
how he would appeal to those workers, which put his candidacy in a realistic
light. See the piece here: http://ways-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2016/06/why-workers-might-favor-businessman-for.html.
This general notion indeed played out in the actual election
results. Exit poll results showed that
Mr. Trump had relatively strong support from low-income voters, middle-aged and
older voters, and those with less education.[1] He received a larger percentage than Mitt
Romney did in 2012 of votes cast by people 45-64 years old, of people with
incomes under $30,000, of people with high school or less and college less than
bachelor’s degrees, and in particular, white people with no college degree. In fact, Trump scored 67% of those votes compared
with just 42% for Romney. Thus, Trump’s
mantra about bringing jobs back to this country would speak to this group, who would
be looking for consistent employment opportunities in production, construction
and mining especially, sectors which have been experiencing major disruptions that
Trump hopes to mitigate.
This situation of uncertainty for middle-aged people in
particular has another, deeply serious component. In a Wall Street Journal discussion of
the election result on November 10 [2], Arthur Brooks, president of the
American Enterprise Institute, expresses concern for middle-aged workers,
especially men and for white, middle-aged people. He calls our attention in turn to a paper
published last December in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences in which Angus Deaton, the Nobel Laureate in economics in 2015
and professor at Princeton, and Anne Case, also at Princeton, describe the
astounding development that the mortality rate of white 45-54 year-olds in this
country actually rose from 1999 to 2013.
This is in clear contrast to the mortality rates for all other age
groups, which declined, an obvious result of advances in medicine.[3]
What happened to those middle-aged white people is
dramatic. Mortality rates for diseases
in that age range did decline. But rates
for externally caused deaths went up: suicide, drug poisoning and alcohol
abuse. Those specific rates went up for
other age groups too, but for the 45-54 year-olds, the increases were so large
that the pushed overall mortality higher.
Subsequent release of data by the U.S. Center for Disease Control for
2014 show the overall uptrend continued that year as well. In addition, Deaton and Case discuss
“morbidity”: the proportion of the
population reporting good health and the proportion reporting poor health, including
various symptoms of pain and the frequency of difficulty performing simple
“activities of daily living” (ADLs). For
this population group between 1997-99 and 2011-13, government data show a
smaller proportion reported good health, a larger proportion poor health. More people had trouble with various ADLs and
more people consumed excessive amounts of
alcohol. There was a significant
increase in the share of these middle-aged white persons who were unable to
work, which, Deaton and Case point out, may correspond to the unusual decline
in labor force participation rates, a phenomenon we have discussed here before.
Deaton and Case suggest that economic insecurity might play
into 45-54-year-olds’ increased use of drugs, dependence on alcohol and
suicides. They mention the same economic
factors we have been talking about: tepid movement of median wages and income
inequality. They point out that these
are especially important for people with just a high-school education. In addition, they discuss the shift in many
employers’ pension arrangements from defined benefit plans to defined
contribution plans. So now it’s up to many
employees to see to the adequacy of their own retirement savings, since there’s
no guarantee of a specific payout during their elder years, as would be the
case with defined benefit plans. The
pressure on these people is thus increased.
They have another reason to be concerned: will they have a steady income
through consistent employment and will the economy grow so that their financial
assets can grow?
This economic pressure on middle-aged white Americans is obviously
not the only reason Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton did not. There is a general unease with governments
and bureaucracies. We saw it earlier
this year in the U.K., where, also, ordinary people surprised their government
leaders as they voted that that nation should withdraw from the European Union,
the development known as “Brexit”. The
work to do so is in process now. The
factor of importance in that issue is similar to what Mr. Trump advocates, the
reduction in regulation of business and other government intrusion into
everyday life. Brexit highlights
people’s frustration with the bureaucratic nature of the EU organization. In the U.S., Trump is concerned that
regulation of business, along with the relatively high U.S. business tax rates,
contributes to companies’ moving their headquarters and some operations to
other countries, even as they continue to sell their products here. He wants to change the government setting for
business so those companies will stay here and keep jobs here. It’s a good idea, if it can be implemented in
a prompt and orderly way. That’s a big
“if”. Further, it will go the wrong way
if there are trade wars and too much anti-immigration push. Tough questions.
Overall, the numbers we have discussed here describe
considerable unease among a core group of Americans, a population group that
rarely gets much attention. But this
election has made us look at them.
Perhaps there’s no genuine link between the pressure they feel and the
election of Mr. Trump, but it seems there might well be.
In church yesterday during the Intercessory Prayer, I heard
myself offer petitions for “all those who are afraid in the wake of the
Election” and for “the new President, that he might govern carefully and
wisely”. We indeed hope Mr. Trump rises
to the occasion and we hope our many friends and acquaintances who are upset
and distressed will find there is reason they can relax.
--------------
[1] “Election 2016: Exit Poll Results.” The New York Times. November 8, 2016 and subsequent updates. The Exit Poll is conducted by Edison
Research and is sponsored by a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBSNews,
CNN, Fox News and NBC News. The data
were collected from 24,537 voters
leaving 350 voting places throughout the United States on Election Day
including 4,398 telephone interviews with early and absentee voters. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html.
[2] Arthur Brooks. “How
Trump Filled the Dignity Deficit,“ The Wall Street Journal. November 10, 2016, page A23. http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-donald-trump-filled-the-dignity-deficit-1478734436
[3] Anne Case and Angus Deaton. “Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife
among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century,” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, December 8, 2015. Pages 15078-15083. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15078
. You may have seen this referenced in
The New York Times as well. A number of
professional health policy publications also contain references.
Labels: American Society, Economy, Government Policies, People