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Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.

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The death rate of white Americans – What’s going on?

21/04/2017 GMT

The Death Rate of White Americans

BBC World Service - More or Less, The Death Rate of White Americans

Are middle-aged white Americans dying younger than other groups?

Are middle-aged white Americans dying younger than other sections of society?

Throughout the 20th Century the developed world saw mortality rates fall and people lived longer and longer. But there is one group who may no longer be seeing a fall in their mortality rate –middle-aged White Americans. This is according to research from the eminent economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. It is shocking research that adds to a view that times are tough for white working class men, a group that contributed to Donald Trump’s electoral success. But the work has been criticised for statistical problems and for not focusing enough on black Americans. Tim Harford attempts to explain what is really going on with mortality rates in the USA.

(Photo: Harmonica playing steel workers perched on a girder on the 22nd storey of the Murray Hill building, New York. Credit: General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

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