SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Rural America is facing an existential crisis. As cities continue to grow and prosper, small towns are shrinking. That fundamental divide played itself out in the recent presidential election.
[...] The trend is clear: Rural America is literally fading away. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the opioid overdose epidemic has hit rural states, like Kentucky and West Virginia, especially hard. And the latest research from the CDC also shouldn't come as a surprise: Suicides in rural America (labeled as non-core) have increased over 40% in 16 years.
From 1999 to 2015, suicide rates increased everywhere in America. On average, across the U.S., suicides increased from 12.2 per 100,000 to 15.7 per 100,0001, an increase of just under 30%. However, in rural America, the suicide rate surged over 40%2, from just over 15 per 100,000 to roughly 22 per 100,000. Similarly, the suicide rate in micropolitan areas (defined as having a population between 10,000-49,999) went from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000, an increase of around 35%.
On the flip side, major cities saw much smaller increases in suicide rates, on the order of 10%. The graph depicts a clear pattern: Suicide rates are highest in the most rural parts of the country, and they slowly decrease as urbanization increases. As of 2015, the suicide rate in rural areas (22 per 100,000) is about 40% higher than in the nation as a whole (15.7 per 100,000) and 83% higher than in large cities (12 per 100,000).
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:55PM (6 children)
It has an effect in that robots do lower wages and reduce jobs [theverge.com]. However, I suspect ideological factors play several orders of magnitude more impact. I'd like to have hard data about the ideological factors where janitors, secretaries, grounds crew, and other useful jobs are axed seemingly just because some C-level scum want to make life hard for both those they have fired and those that will be forced to pick up the slack out of necessity. That looks to me to be the big wound, not the pin prick caused by robots.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:35PM (5 children)
Robots may lower wages and reduce jobs, but this may not be as important a factor as the vast bulk of the world's wealth is held by a small number of people.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:26PM (4 children)
That's basically it in a nutshell. The average CEO takes 300 times as much as the average employee [fortune.com], and a similar discrepancy is there for the other executives. People complain about robots, but firing one executive would allow hundreds of employees to stay one at average wage. Or it would allow half that many but at a double wage. That would be money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot. I'm not sure why people still fall for that Trickle Down crap that was discredited even back in Reagan's time.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:34PM
> money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot
The be precise, the poor spend about 100% of their income, and much of the middle class spend more than that (yay for debt!).
Before the 2008 financial crisis, the average was about 107%. I'm not sure what the current numbers are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:37PM (1 child)
Cause they're idiots who fall for propaganda and just loooove talk radio.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM
The do a lot more than talk radio. Like vote, wrecking good ideas in work life, meddling with other peoples life which they can't comprehend, etc..
Whenever there's a idiot in the ecosystem. The type of area matters less.... :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @01:00AM
I'm guessing that, for most of them, it is because they believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.