(We’ll get back to the story of the moment. But first, the story of the era.) “‘Many people used to associate the meaning of their life with what their corporation or institution was doing.’ Miners and factory workers identified themselves as such. Warehouse workers, especially those whose paycheck is signed by a staffing company, rarely feel the same connection. The result of these trends has been a ‘coming apart,’ as Case and Deaton put it, of day-to-day life for whites without a college degree versus those with a college degree.” NYT: How Working-Class Life Is Killing Americans, in Charts.

+ “Those most vulnerable are distinguished not by where they live but by their race and level of education. Virtually the entire increase in mortality has been among white adults without bachelor’s degrees—some 70 percent of all whites.” The New York Review of Books: Left Behind.