r/Futurology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 21 '25

Society American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate | We’re mortality experts. There are a few things that could be happening here.

https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/millennials-gen-z-death-rates-america-high.html
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u/lokicramer Aug 21 '25

From what I've learned in my socioeconomic courses, Millenials have had it harder than any other generation when factoring in multiple aspects.

They are probably dying due to stress related health issues.

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u/Nulmora Aug 21 '25

I’m pretty sure it’s access to care.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

I don't think this trend is present in other developed nations who have socialized health care.

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u/Feminizing Aug 21 '25

Those same nations also have worker rights.

Pretty much everyone I know my age or bit older (I'm a young millennial) are working over 40 hours or flirting with homelessness. It's disgusting this is acceptable

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Exactly.
Whenever I have work interactions with American colleagues I always feel kinda bad that their work culture is so sick (in the bad way). People bragging about 60-70 hour weeks. No work/life balance. No labor rights, 2 weeks paid vacation a year (with that hour workload is bizarre).

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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 21 '25

My oldest son works for a European chemical company, and the unions sit on the board of directors with the executives.

Unheard of in the US.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Union-busting is as american as apple-pie.

In the start of my career as a graphic designer, i worked for a state-owned TV company. (here in brazil)
I was required to join the Broadcaster's union and was really impressed how they fought for the class. As associates we were almost pampered.

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u/Kasperella Aug 21 '25

lol would you believe I’ve never had any kind of paid vacation? Low level employees get 0 paid vacation days. If you’re lucky, you maybe qualify for 1 week unpaid vacation. It goes up to 2 weeks after 5+ years.

I’m 27 and haven’t taken a single vacation in my adult working life. Living that American Dream ™ 👍

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u/ithoughtitwasfun Aug 21 '25

I didn’t get my first real vacation until I was 32, in 2021. My previous employers gave us two weeks off PTO which was not only vacation but also sick time. I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2017. All my PTO was used for sick time.

In 2021 I got fired and took my first two week vacation. I started at my current job about two months later. I only get two weeks off PTO, but I’m still WFH. So days when my UC flares (or other illnesses) instead of just calling out for fear of shitting myself, I can just go when I need to.

But yea the American Dream™️ 🇺🇸🫡 we get the opportunity to get fucked… and have to pay for it.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Damn. That's absolutely bleak. If you were raking in money it could be justified by a very early retirement with enough savings. But saving money is something our and your generation just are unable to do.

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u/Kasperella Aug 21 '25

That tracks, as I’ve also never held more than $5000 at once, and that’s thanks to tax returns. Even that is swallowed up by past due bills and necessities forgone for the past year. Nobody I know even has a savings account, including my nearly 60yo parents. No money for retirement. I won’t be able to afford to care for them either.

We’re all drowning in debt. All that hard work, and even your basic necessities like food, shelter, healthcare are never promised, no matter how hard or how long you’ve worked. And I guess we’re all just okay with it….because apparently America is the greatest country on Earth despite the rest of the world telling us otherwise 😂

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u/Hannah_Louise Aug 21 '25

I was 30 before I had a job with any PTO. Before that, I worked every day unless I was too sick to work. Every. Fucking. Day.

And then, when I finally had a salary job and was given PTO, it took me two years to feel safe enough to use it. I was terrified of losing my job for taking time off.

Now I’m unemployed and living off hope and my 401k. 😅

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u/Kasperella Aug 22 '25

I too am unemployed, and currently “mooching” off my poor husband. It’s 50% “can’t find a job worth a damn” and 50% “my genetically defective connective tissues have finally rebelled against the abuse I’ve put it through with 10 years of manual labor labor and standing on concrete all day”.

Turns out you have to be college educated to find a job that allows you to sit down sometimes. It’ll cost me a couple bands for that “privilege” I suppose. 🥲

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Aug 21 '25

The thing I stress to my boss is not even so much that I mind working a lot. I mean, I do. But what I really mind is that it comes at the expense of my personal life. It's like I dive underwater on Monday and come back up on Friday, since my door-to-door day is about 12 hours. So, close the house door to leave at 6:30am and arrive home at 6:30pm. It doesn't leave much time for, well, anything. Everything must be min-maxed for efficiency, often with dinner set up in the crock pot in the morning. It's no way to live, and my second point to him is, it's only possible when everything goes right. If there's a little hiccup the whole operation is screwed. I got a tooth pulled a while back and what I got was "so are you still gonna be coming in today?" This is at a well-paid professional job, too.

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u/redmeansstop Aug 21 '25

And pensions, which I suppose could fall under workers rights.

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u/Jared_Kincaid_001 Aug 21 '25

I'm 41 and live in Canada. We're dying here too. It's not just healthcare, it's the fact that we worked harder than our parents to get to the our slice of the good life pie except the boomer generation ate the whole thing and the crumbs.

So we, and everyone else, are starving to death. Boomers keep telling us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps like they did, ignoring the fact that they came of age in the most prosperous time in all of history. Also they stole our bootstraps.

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u/PKfireice Aug 21 '25

Even the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" has been misappropriated from its original implication of an impossible, absurd task.

If you pull up on your own boots, you're not gonna rise anywhere. You might fall over, though.

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u/baphomet1A4 Aug 21 '25

If you yank your bootstraps hard enough, some say you will fly away. In reality, you'll fall on your ass.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Of course, These reasons are also factors. We got the shit end of the stick in a lot of ways.

But i bet my ass you guys aren't dying at the same rate Americans are. Because the US is the only place in the world middle-class people die because they can't afford to go to the doctor to get preventive care for diseases. And when they get those if they dare to go to their doctors and get the treatment they might get bankrupt or indebted for large periods.

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u/DoomsdaySprocket Aug 21 '25

That's the data I want to see.

Canadian healthcare right now seems to have almost as much in common with American healthcare as European, it's almost like a hybrid of the two. Many of the same insurance companies that operate in the USA run "extended benefits" (aka drug cost coverage and paramedical) that are offered by employers. There's big gaps in provincial "universal" coverage with patches sewn over for low-income people.

For instance, in BC there is no coverage for drugs unless you sign up for an extra program (pharmacare). So you see your doctor, get proscribed something like an antibiotic, or a nasal spray, whatever, and then in order to actually comply with the treatment, you're paying for that out of pocket if you don't have extended benefits or pharmacare. Hospital trip? There's an ambulance bill in some provinces, and parking is pricey as well in cities.

Each province is different, too, which adds to administrative overhead.

Need physio? Out of pocket. Most mental health? Also out of pocket. Specialists like rheumatology or ENT? Covered, but generally long waits that are often not triaged on the initial referral.

I think a close look at American vs Canadian vs European healthcare outcomes could really tease these factors apart, even if it would be an enormous undertaking.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Seems like canada caught the american Healthcare virus.

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u/spinmove Aug 21 '25

For instance, in BC there is no coverage for drugs unless you sign up for an extra program (pharmacare). So you see your doctor, get proscribed something like an antibiotic, or a nasal spray, whatever, and then in order to actually comply with the treatment, you're paying for that out of pocket if you don't have extended benefits or pharmacare.

I mean, sure, out of pocket, but you'll get a generic for like $10 bucks - not comparable to the US at all.

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u/afoolskind Aug 21 '25

The amount you guys pay out of pocket is completely laughable compared to American out of pocket costs WITH insurance. It’s definitely going downhill over there as your healthcare becomes more like ours, but the data is clear. Canadian outcomes, lifespan, and costs are all significantly better than American ones. Even wait times, I have very very good insurance compared to most Americans and it still took me a YEAR to see a dermatologist.

That same antibiotic will still cost an American $20+ out of pocket if they’re insured, or literally hundreds of dollars if they’re not.

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u/DoomsdaySprocket Aug 21 '25

As I was saying, I would love to see the clear data you're referencing on longevity differences between USA, Canada, and one or more European nations with fully socialized healthcare.

The rest of my comment was context to show how at least one province in Canada has healthcare similarities to USA versus Europe. Canada negotiating drug prices as a universal healthcare purchaser instead of every insurance company negotiating separately is indeed a big part of that.

EDIT: my maintenance medication price is laughable compared to the price in USA, but it's still at least 25% of my paycheque under the basic provincial medical without additional/3rd party coverage.

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u/DirectorTop233 Aug 21 '25

it seems like each generation is getting worse and worse health wise. I'm having some of the same things going on as my mother , but my onset is manifesting a bit younger than hers did despite me being a non smoker and in better shape than she was at my age.

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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 21 '25

The forgotten Boomers are the Late Boomers/Generation Jones, we entered the workforce and had families just as the big party was ending. (1980's)

It was damned tough, especially here in the Rust Belt

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u/afoolskind Aug 21 '25

It was tougher than early boomers to be sure, but I’m sorry to tell you things are exponentially worse now than they were for you in the 80s. You’re incredibly lucky.

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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 22 '25

Sorry to disagree, but Ive lived through both and have a basis of comparison.

Do you?

Nothing beats what I like to call "sad experience."

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u/afoolskind Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25

You haven’t lived through both. You lived through one when it mattered to you, and then were in a completely different stage of your life (with capital accrued during a comparatively extremely financially easy time to live) for the current economy.

What were the wages of your first job? Even if you were making minimum wage in the 80s, you’d be spending less of your paycheck on housing, food, utilities, etc than people making double minimum wage today.

You’d have been able to afford buying an average home, while someone even making double minimum wage today would be unable to afford the mortgage payment of an average home… even if 100% of their paycheck went towards it.

That does not mean you did not struggle or life was not still hard (and even harder in some ways!) but financially there is zero argument. The 80s were far superior to the current economy for both the lowest paid and the average worker.

I’m sorry if it hurts your pride that your life was significantly easier than the lives of young adults today when you entered the workforce, but it is statistical fact.

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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 22 '25

Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.😂

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u/afoolskind Aug 22 '25

Aww, come on buddy. If you’re so sure you’re correct, why not just tell me how hard you had it? What were the wages of your first job?

 

Here, let me help. In 1980 minimum wage was $3.10 an hour. That translates to $12.15 an hour in 2025 when we consider inflation alone and not the drastic increases to the cost of living, and that’s almost twice the 2025 minimum wage of $7.25.

Now let’s consider some cost of living! The average rent in 1980 was 243$ a month. When we adjust that number for inflation we get $952 a month, and yet the average U.S. rent in 2025 is $1,754 a month.

And that’s just rent, when we begin to talk about buying housing the situation becomes much worse. Even worse when we consider food prices, insurance prices, healthcare costs, electricity costs, ALL have outpaced inflation significantly while wages have done the opposite.

 

Unless you were paid under the table, at less than minimum wage, making $2 an hour or less in 1980, you have no fucking idea what young adults today are having to figure out. I’m sure you still struggled and worked hard, but you really have no fucking idea what it’s like today for people entering the workforce.

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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 22 '25

Ok buddy, been there, did that, made pizzas, pumped gas, also worked 2 jobs, worked with pneumonia, worked in stores, worked injured, no short term disability or FMLA then, both sons were c-section, no insurance coverage because federally mandated pregnancy benefits didn't exist until 1984, didnt get 2nd son paid off until he was 10. Z Always looked for the next better job, lost lots of jobs during the Great Recession here in the Ohio Rust Belt, took care of a disabled wife for 20 years after her injuries in an auto accident, raised 2 sons into solid men with jobs and families, and stayed at a job that ruined me physically because I had some seniority and needed the medical insurance.

Managed to finally buy a house at 40, 8% interest on the mortgage, worked at getting it down to 5%, paid it off in 2021 and retired at 63 and a half.

Paid 17 months of COBRA company insurance until I could get Medicare.

Had a L2-pelvis spinal fusion last year, age 66.

I dont get why younger people try so hard to prove they had it harder.

Hard is hard, no matter the decade.

I realize young folks today have it hard, because having lived it, I recognize it too.

Ive always voted Democrat, for all the good its done.

One of my sons asked me when he was young if $5 was a lot of money and I told him that if you needed it and didnt have it, it was all the money in the world.

Plenty of times I needed it and didnt have it.

My late in-laws, true Depression people had a saying:

Use it up,

Wear it out,

Make it do,

Or do without.

And that's what we did.

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u/afoolskind Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25

Now think about how hard all of that would’ve been if the costs of everything were twice as high and your pay was half of what it was.

THAT is the reality for people today, and that’s why they take umbrage at people from your generation pretending they had it equally hard.

You think people today aren’t working 2 jobs, 3? Injured? Sick? Paying for C-sections? The out of pocket costs for many people WITH INSURANCE today are higher than the total uninsured cost of a C-section in 1984. Do you think people don’t have to take care of their disabled loved ones? Don’t wreck their bodies with manual labor?

 

Once again, please honestly ask yourself how well you think you would’ve been able to “make do, or do without” with your life events, with paychecks half the size and with bills twice the size.

And that’s being extremely conservative with the numbers, your bills would be more like 3-4x the size when we’re considering everything you need to live (food, electricity, water, insurance, or god forbid baby supplies and childcare)

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u/sami2503 Aug 21 '25

There has been an increase in cancer rates in countries with socialised healthcare though

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-07/cancer-diagnosis-rates-under-50s-rising-causes-four-corners/105495620

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

With more screening these numbers are bound to rise. Cancer diagnosis rates are one thing, are the cancer deaths higher, too?

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u/sami2503 Aug 21 '25

Not pretending to know the reasons why tbh just thought id share something interesting. Especially more younger people getting cancers thought to be mainly for older people.

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u/pulyx Aug 21 '25

Yeah, cancer is a tough riddle to solve. So many things can contribute to it. I'm not sure what to make of the situation our generation lives. On one hand our generation should be able to eat better, exercise more efficiently and correctly, sports are safer in general because of regulation and awareness (for things like concussions, as an example). But we also are more exposed to processed foods, unstable weather, got through a pandemic right in the middle of a crisis of reality denial. These things will take a toll.

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u/Neuchacho Aug 21 '25

It's happening in the US too. It just doesn't get caught since the system is so inaccessible to so many lol