Using Census Data - Union High School: Fill & Download for Free

Nobody knows. But there are lots of hypotheses.[tl;dr: it’s driven by rising mortality among whites without a high school degree, it started at least in the 1990s, and the causes are probably multifactorial with the likely culprits obesity, smoking, drug use, and unemployment.]The best place to start on this is the 2016 report done by the Washington Post, “A new divide in American death: Statistics show widening urban-rural health gap” which has interactive graphics, and highlights the education and rural/urban gaps among Whites, clearly showing that rural White America is dying at a faster rate than ever before.The chart shows that from 1990 to 2014, younger, rural White women (lighter orange/brown lines on the left) have the fastest rise in mortality, while urban White men and women have declining mortality. A big chunk of this happened before opioids hit in 2000. But in the period since 2000, overdose has been a major factor.[New time frame and new color scheme, not urban/rural, just by cause of death]. For White women, drug overdoses have gone from essentially negligible to a large factor across all ages.So, what is going on?I believe the first study to notice that something might be amiss was Meara Richards and Cutler (2008), “The Gap Gets Bigger: Changes In Mortality And Life Expectancy, By Education, 1981-2000” from which:I draw your attention to the sixth row — White women with low education attainment (12 or fewer years of education) did not show an increase in life expectancy by survey or using Census data, while every other category did. The decrease calculated from the survey was not statistically significant, and, as I remember, was not greatly remarked upon at the time. Again, these data PREDATE the opioid crisis.The real breakthrough came in Olshansky et al in 2012, which showed something clearly amiss among all whites without high school diplomas, for the period 1990–2008 (Differences In Life Expectancy Due To Race And Educational Differences Are Widening, And Many May Not Catch Up)Life Expectancy At Birth, By Years Of Education At Age 25 For White Females, 1990–2008 (source: Olshansky 2012. Similar graphs for other subpopulations: can be found here)The first three bars on the far left side are the highly relevant ones — life expectancy had started falling for less educated whites in 1990–2000, and by a lot, while it was rising everywhere else. This graph shows white women only, but it was true for all whites with < 12 years education. It was not true in any other subpopulation (White, Black, Hispanic by education).In 2013, Kindig And Cheng “Even As Mortality Fell In Most US Counties, Female Mortality Nonetheless Rose In 42.8 Percent Of Counties From 1992 To 2006” compared mortality at the county level for 1992–1996 to 2002–2006 and found “although male mortality increased in 108 counties (3.4 percent), female mortality increased in 1,334 counties (42.8 percent).”Change In Female Mortality Rates From 1992–96 To 2002–06 In US Counties (Source: Kindig and Cheng 2013)This was another new and startling finding. Although their data were not disaggregated by race or education, the rural, and Appalachia-through-the Delta pattern of rising mortality was unmistakable. It was a flashing warning sign that something was not right in life and health outcomes for a particular subset of women.At the time, various hypotheses for the decline were floated. Olshansky (2005) had previously speculated that rising obesity rates, as a primary cause of diabetes, would lead to reduced life expectancy this century. Differences in Cigarette Smoking is another likely factor (people with < 12 years of education have a 23% smoking rate, those with an undergrad degree have an 8% smoking rate; women as a group increased in smoking prevalence well until the 1980s). Montez and Zajacove, “Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women” found that the biggest difference between low- and high-education white women was in their labor force participation — in their study, only 18% of low-education level women were working, while 50% of high-education level women were working, and hypothesized that employment itself (aside from the income and insurance aspects) was responsible for a large portion of the inter-group difference (but this does not explain changes over time, since there was relatively little change in participation rates in their analysis period).Note that the decline appears to have begun BEFORE the opioid epidemic in the US, which is typically dated to 2000–2001 when Oxycontin began direct marketing to consumers, and the Joint Commission published their guidance on pain management with an emphasis on opioids (Opioids: From 'wonder drug' to abuse epidemic)But things got really interesting in 2015, with the publication of Case and Deaton, “Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century”. Although not without its critics, their study found that for whites 45–54, mortality jumped from 1999 to 2013, and this increase was “largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases.”Their Table 1 shows changes in mortality rates from 1999 to 2013, so negative numbers are good, positive numbers are bad. Clearly the only racial group with rising mortality is White non-Hispanic, and within that group, the only category with rising all-cause mortality by educational status is those with a High School degree or less.Graphing out the causes of mortality for Whites 45–54 only, a startling pattern emerges.Their Figure 2 shows that the drivers from 1999 to 2015 were not smoking (lung cancer) or obesity (diabetes), but instead were poisonings (drug overdose), suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver (secondary to alcoholism). The analysis period coincides with the spread of opioids into the population, the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent economic depression, and, the ongoing decline in employment opportunities for those with a high school degree or less. Parallels to the decline in life expectancy in the immediate aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union were drawnSo, when the National Center for Health Statistics released its 2015 all cause mortality report, demographers already had an inkling that we might start to see reversals in the broad population indicators. And indeed we didDeath rates are higher overall for every group except Black women, with the biggest jump (+10.3 per 100,000 population) among White women (btw Hispanic (and Asian) women remain the healthiest sub-populations in the US, and nobody really knows why). And as reporters noted,the overall death rate for Americans increased because mortality from heart disease and stroke increased after declining for years. Deaths were also up from Alzheimer's disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease and diabetes. More Americans also died from unintentional injuries and suicide. In all, the decline was driven by increases in deaths from eight of the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.These kind of across the board increases in mortality are hard to square with any one interpretation or causal factor. As a result, we’re back to guessing, for now, about obesity, smoking, opioids, and falling labor force participation rates among whites with a high school education or less. For demographers, it has the appearance of a slow-moving train wreck, that is claiming thousands of lives as it unfolds.

A2A:there are many answers.First, despite what some claim, the original questioner was quoting from a California assemblyman who represents one of the poorest parts of our state (Riverside County). Politifact judged his claim that California has “the highest poverty rate” in the nation to be true[1].Some point out that looking strictly at national data, California is 35th. But that is one measure. The one used by Politifact adjusted incomes for cost of living (that is to say, someone earning $20,000 in Mississippi is poor but not in poverty. Someone living in Los Angeles with those same means is). It’s a bit silly not to adjust for purchasing power from an economics perspective.From the Politifact article:The supplemental report is considered by experts the best state-by-state measure of poverty, because it takes into account geographic differences in cost-of-living, not just income levels.With that said, a simple answer to whether illegal immigrants “add to our economy” or not is not possible.The Harvard economist George Borjas published a paper a couple of years ago, and its results are laid it pretty succinctly here[2]. Essentially, adding people to the economy is going to grow its size. The GDP almost necessarily will go up. Hence, as the state of California has surged past 30 to now nearly 40 million residents, of course its economy is larger.But the benefits (and costs) are not uniformly distributed. To quote Borjas:Here’s the problem with the current immigration debate: Neither side is revealing the whole picture. Trump might cite my work, but he overlooks my findings that the influx of immigrants can potentially be a net good for the nation, increasing the total wealth of the population. Clinton ignores the hard truth that not everyone benefits when immigrants arrive. For many Americans, the influx of immigrants hurts their prospects significantly.Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually. According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year.But that’s only one side of the story. Somebody’s lower wage is always somebody else’s higher profit. In this case, immigration redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants—from the employee to the employer. And the additional profits are so large that the economic pie accruing to all natives actually grows. I estimate the current “immigration surplus”—the net increase in the total wealth of the native population—to be about$50 billion annually. But behind that calculation is a much larger shift from one group of Americans to another: The total wealth redistribution from the native losers to the native winners is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year. Immigrants, too, gain substantially; their total earnings far exceed what their income would have been had they not migrated.The picture is not simple. Having millions of illegal immigrants (who are far more likely to lack education, to have fewer skills, and who obviously have next to no legal protections from exploitation has an impact on poverty. The increased numbers of people plainly drives up housing and other costs, while simultaneously driving down wages for those who compete with the illegals.I live in San Francisco - the city is expected (by some accounts) to grow from 800,000 to close to a million people over the next 25–50 years. The city simply will not be able to build additional housing to accommodate the additional 200,000 people, a large number of whom will be immigrants (virtually all of California’s net population growth over the past 25 years is due to immigration). The tech barons who pay pennies to have their offices cleaned, or shop for non-GMO pesticide-free humanely sourced quinoa will be able to have these things at prices kept down because there will be willing, hard-working immigrants. But to the guy who has a high school degree and no more, who has not learnt to be a plumber or carpenter or into the electrician’s union - his wages will be cut.As Borjas says, the blue collar worker sees his wealth transferred to Mark Zuckerberg.Footnotes[1] TRUE: California has the nation’s highest poverty rate[2] Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers

Having grown up for 18 years in Seattle, then going out of state for college, I feel like I can provide some good insight for this question. Though this also makes me pretty biased, I’ll try to be as objective as possible.The weatherYes, it’s true that it rains a lot. This will probably be a deal breaker if you or someone in your family is greatly affected by the weather (i.e. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)). However, most of the time, the rain is really light or the weather is just gloomy. There are only huge downpours or storms once in a while. I’ve come to value these days because it teaches you to appreciate the little things in life — the sunny days, the warm days, staying in at home wrapped up on the couch, etc. Lots of rain also means lots of green, and it means that we don’t have to deal with possibilities of drought.Nature AND City lifeSeattle and its neighboring suburbs are really lucky in that we have access to beautiful mountains and gorgeous lakes within just a couple of miles, as well as access to thriving cities like Seattle and Bellevue. Being able to hike up places like the one above (a trail called Rattlesnake Ridge), is really easy and there are many more like it! On the other hand, whether you’re living in the city or in one of the suburbs, Seattle is always really close and always has fun things to do, restaurants to try, and places to visit. Traffic is pretty bad (especially around Amazon’s HQ in South Lake Union), but with the new light rail system, transportation is getting much easier.Being able to raise a family in a place like this is the best of both worlds. It allows your children to experience and appreciate the outdoors, while also experiencing the hustle and bustle of the city life, hopefully helping them learn what they would prefer in the future!Diversity and CultureAccording to Princenomics data gathered in 2013, Seattle was the 34th most diverse major city in the US. According to 2010 Census data, about 1/3 of Seattle’s population is made up of people of color. Last piece of data: using a new formula to calculate the Diversity Index — which represents the chance that two randomly chosen people will be different by race and ethnicity — Seattle ranks number 3, with a score of 79.3, meaning if you randomly chose two people, almost 4 out of 5 times, the two people will be of different race and ethnicity.What do these numbers mean? It means that children will grow up going to school with Asians, Hispanics, Caucasians, African Americans, and many other races. They will be exposed to tons of different cultures, and will learn the importance of being inclusive and respectful. Habits are formed early on, and raising a family in a culturally diverse city will only help children develop these habits from a young age. Having grown up in Seattle as an Asian American, I can really feel the difference of treatment when I travel to less diverse cities.EducationIn a 2016 ranking by WalletHub, Seattle was ranked the 10th smartest US city, and in 2013, Fastcoexist named Seattle the #1 smartest city in North America. These are obviously subjective, and their methodologies are unclear, but what’s true is that Seattle has some of the most educated people in the US. According to the 2010 Census, about 60% of the population in Seattle has at least a Bachelor’s Degree, and companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are growing their offices here for a reason and are bringing in very, very smart people. Seattle also has some great high schools, with the Seattle Public School district and the neighboring Bellevue School District doing a very good job of preparing students for college. Speaking of which, The University of Washington has been shooting up the college rankings, especially among public schools.IndustrySeattle is a great place for those looking to work in technology. Amazon and Microsoft have their headquarters in Seattle, and companies like Facebook, Uber, Google, Twitter, and Airbnb are all realizing that Seattle has tons of talent and are building remote offices in the area. Seattle has many great companies outside of technology too, including local companies like Starbucks, Boeing, and Nordstroms. Seattle also was one of the first cities to pass legislation increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour. Seattle is also consistently on the front lines of labor laws, being one of the first cities to get laws passed allowing Lyft and Uber drivers to unionize. In general, it is a very friendly place to work (though the commute is not always friendly), and has a really stable economy.Like I said, I grew up in Seattle, and though I have left for college, I have always planned on returning to work and raise a family. There are not many places that have such a great balance between nature/the outdoors and a fast-paced, growing city. The respect of people who are culturally aware and diverse makes it extremely comfortable for people of any color, and is really eye-opening for those getting exposed to new cultures. Seattle has been a well-kept secret for a while, but seeing as the population has been growing at record paces lately, looks like the secret is out!