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A silent epidemic is killing middle-aged white folks in Georgia

Angus Deaton, left, with his wife, Anne Case, after a news conference about his win of the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., Oct. 12, 2015. A finding reported Monday by Deaton and Case stated that increases in mortality rates of middle-aged white Americans due to suicide and substance abuse rose in parallel with increasing reports of pain, poor health and distress. (Ben Solomon/The New York Times)

Credit: BEN SOLOMON

Credit: BEN SOLOMON

Angus Deaton, left, with his wife, Anne Case, after a news conference about his win of the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., Oct. 12, 2015. A finding reported Monday by Deaton and Case stated that increases in mortality rates of middle-aged white Americans due to suicide and substance abuse rose in parallel with increasing reports of pain, poor health and distress. (Ben Solomon/The New York Times)
By
Nov 11, 2015

For years, a silent epidemic has afflicted America without anyone particularly noticing: White middle age people are dying.

The stunning Princeton University study has raised issues with a loss of expectations for Americans who feel they are losing out in the American dream. In the past generation, steady jobs have vanished, leaving former workers to scramble to take crummy jobs or sit stewing at home, thinking what might have been.

We crunch the numbers to find out what's the case in Georgia. Read here to find out why.

About the Author

Bill Torpy, who writes about metro Atlanta for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joined the newspaper in 1990.

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