A wide swath of white American men are down in the dumps, their dire mood showing up in everything from mortality statistics to national politics.
Working-age men who have dropped out of the US workforce were found to be more stressed and sadder than their peers in both poor and rich countries, according to a new study released by the Brookings Institution. The unhappiness gap between out-of-work men and those with jobs is also much wider in the US.
A key step to improve their outlook: asking them how they feel. Had the American government been measuring well-being indicators, it would have noticed the sagging optimism among blue-collar, working-age white men years ago, says Carol Graham, one of the authors of the Brookings paper.
“We might have averted the crisis,” she says.
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