Yes, High-School Graduates Are Dying of Despair

Estimates of age-adjusted hazard ratios

Matthew Yglesias recently tried his hand at debunking Case and Deaton’s work on rising deaths of despair—deaths due to alcohol poisoning, drug overdose, and suicide. At first, I was dismissive on Twitter, but Eric Levitz pushed back enough for me to pay attention to the argument. Specifically, Levitz is convinced that the despair is confined to high sch…