Opioids and the Unattached Male
By Patrick T. Brown | January 17, 2022 | 5:03pm EST
The United States now averages about 275 drug-related deaths per day, largely from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Many are aware by now that the spike in drug overdoses has hit white men without a college degree hardest (though black men are, unfortunately, gaining ground in this area). But one factor continues to be underdiscussed: it is disproportionately a crisis of single men.
While this trend has been noticeable over the past decade, the pandemic-afflicted year of 2020 seems to have thrown fuel on the fire. The latest CDC data shows that 35,419 single and divorced prime-age (25- to 54-year-old) men died of drug-related causes, a 35 percent increase from the year before. The never-married make up about one-third of the prime-age male population, but compose two-thirds of that demographic’s drug-related deaths. Similarly, the share of prime-age divorced men who succumbed to drug overdoses was nearly twice their share of the population at large.
From 2010 to 2019, the drug-related death rate among never-married prime-age white men increased some 125 percent: from 52 deaths per 100,000 to 117 (including 2020 would show an even steeper rise, but the pandemic affected Census data collection). If single and divorced prime-age white men had seen opioid deaths rise by only the same rate as those deaths rose among their married counterparts, the U.S. would have seen 38,800 fewer deaths from drug-related causes over the past decade just among this demographic group.
A marriage certificate is no prophylactic against the scourge of drug overdoses, of course. Marital status is correlated with income, race, and age; while death certificates don’t report income, we know that married decedents are more likely to be white, older, and better-educated. Controlling for those factors still shows single men to be at greater risk of dying from drug-related causes than married ones.
(All charts courtesy of the author.)
Any discussion of opioid deaths, then, should focus on the unique perils of the unattached male. Some scholars have indeed pointed out the trend. University of Maryland sociologist Phillip Cohen has previously noted that from 2007 to 2017, overall mortality rose among unmarried whites, driven by the increase in drug and alcohol deaths. (For blacks and Hispanics, slower to be hit by the rise in synthetic opioid use, mortality largely remained flat.) The Joint Economic Committee’s Social Capital Project, where I worked for two years, also highlighted the disproportionate effects on the never-married and divorced in its analysis of 2015 death records.
But analysts are often reluctant to discuss the problem in these terms. For one, precisely identifying the instrumental value of marriage can be tricky. No randomized controlled trials capture marriage’s benefits, and selection problems exist—people who can attract a spouse are probably qualitatively different than people who can’t. The traits and characteristics of someone who marries — being dependable and oriented for the future — are probably associated with more education and resistance to illicit drug use. An opioid user who is already single is also more likely to stay single.
But while we may not be able to precisely measure marriage’s causal impact on any given individual, there is no shortage of research that suggest marriage can play a very real role in helping ourselves, our children, and our communities. And while many factors go into the choice to marry, these decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. Strong evidence exists that the status quo in public policy can prejudice an individual’s decision-making for or against marriage, at least on the margin.
A 2019 HHS report found that marriage penalties in tax and transfer programs had the biggest impact on “working class families with incomes between 100 and 250% of the [Federal Poverty Level].” Some working-class and middle-class parents tell focus groups that they would like to marry but choose not to — for fear of losing the in-kind benefits they receive. Our public policies too often prod people toward less stable forms of union through benefit cliffs and implicit marginal tax rates.
As policymakers consider how incentives render young men more vulnerable to opioids, they should not limit themselves to public-health interventions and law enforcement action to stop the flow of illicit drugs. They should also remove state barriers that nudge young adults away from marriage, reform our education system to help young men become productive, marriageable contributors to society, and work on shaping an economy in which more men can be productive without having a college degree.
If marriage by itself does not guarantee better outcomes, it has the potential to transform people’s lives as an institution aimed at permanence, selflessness, and stability. Any agenda to combat the scourge of drug overdoses must include moving beyond agnosticism toward marriage’s potential benefits and undoing the barriers that make it harder for many adults to get married — and to live longer and healthier lives.
Patrick T. Brown (@PTBwrites) is an Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow.
AMERICA'S BIGGEST THREAT LIVES ON WALL STREET. WE NEED TO BURN THEM DOWN!
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Multinational Corporations Claim Challenging Monopoly Power Hurts Small Business
Multinational corporations, including big banks and big businesses represented by the Chamber of Commerce, are lobbying against a plan by New York State legislators to take on concentrated corporate monopoly power by claiming it will hurt small businesses.
The legislation, known as S.B.933A, would amount to the “most significant legal challenge to big tech monopoly power in the country,” according to Matt Stoller, the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project.
“Right now, to be considered subject to monopolization law, a firm has to have 70 to 90% of a market, plus it has to engage in egregious behavior that economists measure as inefficient,” Stoller wrote of the legislation last year:
This bill would blow up that entire framework. First, a firm would only have to have 40% of a market to be considered dominant. Plus, firms that are powerful enough to set wages across an industry, ahem Amazon, would also be considered dominant. It wouldn’t be illegal to be dominant, but under this legislative framework, dominant firms would no longer be allowed to engage in predatory conduct or block competitors from the market. [Emphasis added]
A group of multinational corporations and various Chamber of Commerce branches, represented by the Partnership for New York City organization, wrote a letter to New York legislators and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) — using allegations that small businesses will be hurt to lobby opposition against the legislation.
“This legislation purports to curb the excesses of the largest companies, particularly ‘big tech,’ but would instead create a new level of risk, cost, and potential liability for all New York state businesses, large and small,” the heads of various corporations write:
If enacted, this law would make New York far less attractive for business investment and job creation, since it will put restrictions on New York firms that their competitors in other states and most countries would not be subject to. It would also discourage competitive business activities that benefit consumers with lower prices and innovative products. Ultimately, the result of this legislation will be lost jobs and reduced tax revenues. [Emphasis added]
…
The implications of these changes would be significant. New York would be an outlier in its antitrust enforcement posture not only in the U.S., but internationally. Moreover, the new rules will not improve the ability of state authorities to prosecute bad business conduct that hurts consumers. New York already has effective antitrust laws that are vigorously enforced by the Attorney General’s Office, often in close coordination with the federal antitrust enforcement agencies and sister agencies in other states. [Emphasis added]
The anti-monopoly legislation, though, is only likely to affect corporations with concentrated market power, many of whom signed onto the letter — including American Express, Condé Nast, Pfizer, McGraw-Hill Education, and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
American Economic Liberties Project details that “only a small proportion of firms will have any changes to their legal obligations, as most firms do not have market power” as a result of the legislation.
“Large corporations are using small businesses as a shield to protect their own anti-competitive behavior, but most small and medium firms simply do not have enough market power to fall under this bill’s purview,” the group notes.
As data has long revealed, a handful of corporations dominate vital markets in the American economy from retail to pharmaceuticals — often outsourcing the manufacturing and production of their products to foreign countries.
According to the Open Markets Institute, corporations like “Worldwide Nike controls almost two-fifths of the sports shoe business, a number that has grown since its two main rivals, Adidas and Reebok, merged in 2005” while “Amazon sells 74 percent of all e-books sold online, and it sells 64 percent of all print books sold online.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Tom Cotton: Joe Biden Will Keep Foreign Drug Dealers in U.S.
8 Feb 2021115
4:36
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) slammed President Joe Biden’s
administration amid evidence that his deputies want to
minimize the deportation of illegal migrants who are caught
dealing deadly drugs.
“It’s the Biden administration policy to allow illegal aliens to stay in America even after they: -Deal fentanyl and heroin -Commit fraud -Commit assault -Drive drunk -Launder money,” Cotton tweeted February 8.
“More than 80,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year. And the Biden administration just announced that deporting illegal alien cartel members who deal with fentanyl and heroin is no longer a priority for his administration,” he added.
For more than 20 years, many Americans have been killed by drunk-driving illegals, including many killed after federal and state officials decide not to deport illegals.
It's the Biden administration policy to allow illegal aliens to stay in America even after they:
-Deal fentanyl and heroin
-Commit fraud
-Commit assault
-Drive drunk
-Launder moneyhttps://t.co/Vr0RhYAJQV
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) February 8, 2021
The Washington Post reported February 7 how Biden’s deputies are changing deportation priorities for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency:
While ICE’s new operational plans are not yet final, interim instructions sent to senior officials point to a major shift in enforcement. Agents will no longer seek to deport immigrants for crimes such as driving under the influence and assault, and will focus instead on national security threats, recent border crossers and people completing prison and jail terms for aggravated felony convictions.
“Generally, these convictions would not include drug based crimes (less serious offenses), simple assault, DUI, money laundering, property crimes, fraud, tax crimes, solicitation, or charges without convictions,” acting director Tae Johnson told senior officials in a Thursday email advising them on how to operate while new guidelines are finalized.
“The priority for the enforcement of immigration laws will be on those who are imposing a national security threat, of course, a public safety threat, and on recent arrivals,” Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in the February 8 White House press briefing:
Nobody is saying that DUIs or assaults are acceptable behavior, and those arrested for such activities should be tried and sentenced as appropriate by local law enforcement. But we’re talking about the prioritization of who is going to be deported from the country.
The priority list for deportations also excludes migrants who take American’ jobs and wages. This policy will largely abandon the task of protecting Americans’ right to a national labor market.
Biden has repeatedly declared he wants to make the nation’s immigration system more “fair” to migrants. Since January 20, he has minimized deportations, stopped construction of the border wall, offered an amnesty to migrants, broken anti-migration deals with three counties, and has lowered legal barriers to migration.
However, he has said little or nothing about how he will protect Americans’ rights, wages, safe streets, and reasonable housing from foreign criminals or job seekers. A February 2 statement said:
President Biden’s strategy is centered on the basic premise that our country is safer, stronger, and more prosperous with a fair, safe and orderly immigration system that welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people—both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations—to more fully contribute to our country.
Amid Biden’s inrush of migrants and shutdown of deportations, more than 20 million Americans are unemployed or are stuck in part-time jobs.
Biden is also rolling back protections for American graduates, who have lost at least one million jobs because Fortune 500 CEOs and their subcontractors have hired more than 1 million foreign graduates for jobs sought by Americans.
In a separate tweet, Cotton lambasted Biden’s team for dropping a rule that would protect American graduate from losing jobs to H-1B graduate visa-workers who are willing to work for low wages in the hope of getting green cards:
Big Tech abuses the H-1B visa program to hire cheap foreign labor instead of Americans. That isn’t good for American workers, but the Biden administration is letting companies get away with it.https://t.co/YIolIoyqJl
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) February 5, 2021
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration — or the hiring of temporary contract workers into the jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, priority-driven, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and immigration in theory.
Joe Biden's deputies attack Americans' right to their own national labor market, by quietly barring the deportation of illegal migrants who take Americans' wages and jobs.
That labor policy helps corporate donors.
But hurts blue collars & college grads. https://t.co/RNCMFv4aJh
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) February 8, 2021
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