Richard Rowland

"Researchers: Increase minimum wage, see reduction in suicides."

First, I apologize if this subject is a reminder of an unpleasant experience. However, I think this topic is worthy of discussion. What I've posted here is a column featured in today's newspaper. Having read it, I turned to Google hoping to find the digital piece.

The piece is pointing out that better wages can be a means for preventing suicide. I feel the act of suicide is a bit more complicated than wages. However, that's not to suggest that a narrow focus on a particular cause, for why some have committed suicide, is invalid.

Most are aware of the high numbers of military servicemen choosing suicide as a solution for what's troubling them. Unaddressed issues of the mind torturing itself, I suspect as the reasons. This report didn't include deaths caused by drugs. There are to my knowledge, two types of a drug-related death. Overdose, and purposely ending one's life due to drug use.

I can imagine the despair of being hooked on drugs and the realization that one's life, for all practical purposes is already lost, why not just add the finishing touch. I had a friend that took the only way out, she thought available.

My father's brother, my uncle, suffered a stroke, decided that he could no longer endure living in the condition the stroke had left him in. However, each case is unique, some leave a note, others go in silence, and alone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-increase-linked-to-lower-suicide-rate-study-finds/

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Economic pressures undoubtedly contribute to some cases of suicide...

archie bunker Loc: Texas

This is a sore spot for me. And, I don't have the answers.
My opinion is that suicide is a selfish move unless in aganozing, unstoppable pain, or imminent torture. And the last is iffy.
I've dealt with it.

maryjane

It is not for ANY of us to truly know the mind of another. There are many, many reasons a person chooses suicide, but, somehow, I doubt that money is usually the deciding factor.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

A difficult subject.....

Rose42

I've dealt with it in others (including a family member) and I would agree. And I'd agree its difficult.

22 vets a day commit suicide. Per DAY. Money isn't the reason. These vets have difficulty fitting in to society after what they've been through and there is little to no help or understanding for them.

I think there are many other reasons for everyone - increased use of drugs, thinking some mental illnesses can't be helped, a******ns....women who've had an a******n have a much higher rate of mental issues. Understandably. Social media plays a part - its not to blame but it plays a part. Absentee parents. The breakdown of the family. Children need a mother and a father - not two mothers or two fathers. The latter is exceedingly selfish with no regard for the child.

There are numerous other reasons. The most important one IMO is that our nation is becoming more and more secular.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Agreed...

There are times when I would consider it a blessing... But they are few and far between...

Generally I consider it a selfish act...
Cannot imagine the mindset an individual would have to be in to contemplate such an act...

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

I agree with much of that...

The secular part I am not entirely certain about...

People are certainly distancing themselves from their natural state....

archie bunker Loc: Texas

My best friend who basically raised me from the age of 15 shot himself in 2006 for no apparent reason. I washed his blood off of the patio that morning, and tried to help his wife.


The gun is in its original box on a shelf in a closet here.

I loved him like a brother. Now, I'm still kinda mad at him.....

son of witless

Wages did not go up much under Obama. Does that make him the suicide President ?

okie don

I had an Army buddy and best man in our wedding do it.
Think of him frequently. Think it was financial but will never know.

Rose42

Friend of mine did it. Made a big mistake and they came after everything he had. He shot himself because he couldn’t deal with it.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

It's devastating, and we will never know, or understand.

okie don

What's disturbing is all the returning military - 22/ day.
This has never occurred before Tommy knowledge. VA has a hotline for vets if needed...
Sad

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

There's a Democrat somewhere plotting to use that as yet another specious excuse to force employers to raise prices so they can pay more for wage labor. Or is it to pay more for wage labor and then raise prices? No, wait, they automate the jobs away because that becomes more economically viable and the now unemployed minimum wage ex-worker lives off social security, so they are obliged to raise the values of social security benefits because the now unemployed ex-worker might commit suicide, forcing employers and workers alike to pay yet more in taxes to subsidize those who lost their jobs to automation because some socialist i***t made a general connection between low wages and suicide. Now the even lower paid workers (because of the higher taxes they are forced to pay) are in even more grave danger of committing suicide because they are even worse off than they were before.

And thus government intervention in the free market claims yet another triumph.