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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).
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:26PM (3 children)
Robots are going to be the scapegoat that the rich use to avoid the subject of the vast wealth inequality. Jesus said "you will always have the poor". If there were a lot less difference between the rich and poor, more people might have a good enough quality of life that they wouldn't see life as hopeless.
But robots will be blamed. I think the deeper problem is that some people have insatiable greed and no regrets about the people they walk over.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM
I don't follow what their argument would be. Even if the cause of growing inequality were automation, that's not a reason not to tax the rich more, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @11:17AM (1 child)
I don't have the source at hand here, but I have read that the eight richest people in the world have a combined wealth equal to the poorest 3.5 billion people. That sort of inequality is going to end up with 8 heads on spikes outside their respective palaces.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 03 2017, @08:06AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves