THE RECENT REVERSAL in life expectancy in America has focused much attention on the “deaths of despair” of poorly educated middle-aged white men. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) overall life expectancy fell for the second time in three years in 2017, driven by a surge in opioid overdoses and suicide, at which whites are most at risk. But a new paper by Lauren Gaydosh, a sociologist at the Center for Medicine Health and Society at Vanderbilt University suggests that unhappiness and its symptoms are widespread in middle age Americans of all races and ethnicities.

Ms Gaydosh and her colleagues used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to track the health and behaviour of a group of Americans first surveyed in the mid-1990s when they were teenagers. They were most recently interviewed in 2016 when they were in their late 30s and 40s. The researchers studied the data on depressive symptoms and reported contemplation of suicide. They also tracked behaviours including heavy drinking and marijuana use.

The results suggest that depressive symptoms, thoughts of suicide, drinking and marijuana use all fell during the period when respondents were in their twenties and then increased during the last decade as they entered their thirties and early forties. This pattern was similar across all groups: whites, blacks and Hispanics.

Strikingly, the researchers found that for depressive symptoms in particular, average rates amongst blacks and Hispanics were higher than among whites. In the most recent round of the survey, one third of blacks with a high school education or less reported that they had been diagnosed with depression or anxiety. That was slightly higher than the proportion of less-educated whites.

While thoughts of suicide were slightly higher on average amongst less-educated whites than other groups, the pattern of change over time was similar. Again, heavy drinking was higher amongst whites than other groups, but both the uptick in drinking as well as smoking marijuana in the last ten years was driven by those whites surveyed who had more than a high school education, not the less-educated.

Despite the study’s conclusion that misery is spreading across the whole cohort reaching middle age, it also suggests that opioid abuse along with other prescription drug abuse and illegal drug use remain much higher amongst non-college educated whites. Other research has shown that whites commit suicide at a higher rate than blacks and Hispanics: according to the CDC, white non-Hispanic Americans commit suicide at around three times the rate of blacks and Hispanics, with the highest and growing toll amongst older men.

The reasons why poorly educated white men are unhappy are well documented. In research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research Margherita Borella, an economist, found for that white, non-college-educated Americans born in the 1960s face shorter life expectancies, higher medical expenses, and lower wages compared with those born in the 1940s. This suggests that increased suicide rates among white men may be caused in part by a decline in income and status.

Yet poorly educated white men remain better off than women and minorities. According to Pew Research, in 2018 working women earned 85% of what working men earned per hour. The average black American earned 65% as much as a white in 2016, only marginally up from 59% in 1970. For Hispanic workers the wage ratio actually fell from 74% to 65% over that period.

How should policy makers respond in a way that is both effective and equitable? In a paper published for the National Bureau of Economic Research in April, William Dow, a public health specialist, reported that suicides were lower in states that have increased the minimum wage and provided more generous credits through the EITC (earned income tax credit), a refundable tax credit for low income individuals and families.

Earlier research by William Evans and Craig Garthwaite, economists, suggests that increasing the EITC also improves self-reported mental health measures among its recipients. Because of lower incomes, minorities and women are more likely to be eligible for EITC payments, and to benefit from minimum wage increases. All of this suggests that a stronger safety net would speed progress toward a more equal America—and reduce the anguish of some who may see themselves losing from the process.