The 2016 election put the plight of working-class America front and center in American politics. A long-neglected and largely forgotten voting bloc thought by many to be shrinking to the point of irrelevance suddenly mattered, nationally and in every state. But more important even than the political consequences, the campaign and what followed shone a light on working-class communities, revealing a cluster of problems—economic, social, health-related—that had been festering for several decades.
Since the late 1970s and still today, working-class America is bearing the brunt of automation and globalization: entire industries are disappearing, and wages have been flat since the 1970s. Marriage has declined faster among the working class than in any other group, richer or poorer. Civic institutions that once sustained blue-collar enclaves—churches, union halls, neighborhood associations, the local VFW or Lions Club—are closing their doors or moving elsewhere. And as the social fabric frays, a host of new problems are arising, from opioid addiction to what Anne Case and Angus Deaton have called "deaths of despair" caused by drugs, alcohol or suicide and correlated with distress and social dysfunction.
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