I was told that the longevity statistics for black men are skewed downward by virtue of their disproportionately high rate of being murdered in their teens and twenties by other black men in their teens and twenties. If a black man can make it to his late 30s in one piece, he stands a fine chance of living a plenty long life. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, here's an analysis of Krugman's piece.

Krugman says Blacks' low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood.

But that seems to conflict with the following from the above link:

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, 40% of black men die between the ages of 55 and 75, and only 349 out of 1,000 will make it to 75. Contrast that with the number of white women who will live that long (712/1000) and the disparity begins to make sense. The report goes on to say that, while the life expectancy of whites making it to 65 has increased, that of blacks who make it to 65 has remained relatively unchanged over the past 15 years.

Here are two more critiques:

First over at Luskin's site:

Krugman defends the Social Security status quo by saying that it advantages African-Americans:

...the formula determining Social Security benefits is progressive: it provides more benefits, as a percentage of earnings, to low-income workers than to high-income workers. Since African-Americans are paid much less, on average, than whites, this works to their advantage.

Yet a couple sentences later, Krugman blasts George Bush for advocating personal accounts because as advantaging African-Americans who don't live as long as whites, and so don't collect as many benefit payments under the current system:

...it isn't particularly soft to treat premature black deaths not as a tragedy we must end but as just another way to push your ideological agenda. But bigotry - yes, that sounds like the right word.

How come it's bigotry to advocate personal accounts by citing the fact that African-Americans don't live as long -- but it's not bigotry to advocate the status quo by pointing out that African-Americans don't earn as much?

And second from Heritage:

Krugman cites a 1998 memo from Social Security Administration actuary Steve Goss criticizing some aspects of the methodology that we used and leaps to the conclusion our study is nothing but “damned lies.” He then accuses President Bush of taking the higher death rate for African Americans for granted, stating that “But the claim that blacks get a bad deal from Social Security is false. And Mr. Bush's use of that false argument is doubly shameful, because he's exploiting the tragedy of high black mortality for political gain instead of treating it as a problem we should solve.”

Let’s put the rhetoric aside, and concentrate on facts.

We answered Goss’s critique (and others) long ago, in our December 11, 1998, report “Social Security’s Rate of Return: A Reply to Our Critics.”[2] This paper has been available on our website for many years now and proves that we did account for Social Security’s progressive retirement benefits formula, as well as disability and survivor benefits and other elements of the program that disproportionately benefit minorities.

In short, we used the same benefit formula that Social Security uses to calculate retirement benefits for our study. We included the cost of a life insurance policy that duplicates the survivors benefits offered by Social Security. Most importantly, we treat disability benefits as a separate program from the retirement and survivors benefit program that we studied.

Indeed, we went so far as to rerun the numbers using an alternate methodology suggested by Goss and found that it reinforced our initial finding that African Americans generally receive a far lesser return on their “investment” of Social Security taxes than whites.

Disability benefits are not included in our study for a good reason: Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) benefits are administered through a separate program that has its own tax (0.9 percent of income from both the employer and employee), its own trust fund, and its own procedures for determining eligibility.

Well, I guess the only question now is: what will Krugman do now that an entire six-pack of stupid has been opened up on his ass?

Toby, you're close to correct. The lousy health care that many black infants/expectant mothers receive is the other factor that reduces overall expectancy. But you're right: if black people make it to middle age, they live almost exactly as long as white people.

mucktard:

Once again, you've supplied statistics that don't address the fundamental contention of the author. The fact that white women live longer than black men doesn't explain anything, because women live longer!! And your stat STILL doesn't address the CAUSES of the different expectancies, doubtless because you know that getting into that discussion short-circuits your privatization arguments. (Just like any other discussion based on legitimate facts.)

Regardless of race or socioeconomic background, you're going to want to do the calculations yourself.

Social Security Calculator

Yeah Muck, why the hell are you comparing black men to white women instead of black men to white men?

You really expose your lack of common sense and elementary logic skills when make such BS comparisons.

Besides missing the main point, your facts are off. Try this analysis and this fact sheet.

And this comment from your link pretty much highlights my main point, that the problem is that bush assumes that these discrepencies will exist forty years from now and he couldn't care less.

What Krugman ignores here is the myriad of diseases and conditions that blacks are more succeptible to (for any number of reasons). Heart disease, sickle cell, certian forms of cancer (gum and mouth cancer especially), and many others all contribute more to early black death rates than he would let you think.

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Sign the petition to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage,and repeal the faulty Republican prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage of medication under Medicare Part B.
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Spread the word. Companies put the chimp back in power. Take your demands to some of these companies for they have money to lose if they don't help get a progressive agenda passed in congress.

What Bush should have been talking to Black leaders about, instead of how young they die, is how to Stop them from dying young. How to Stop them from being disenfranchised systematically by the GOP. How to Stop over 20% of Black males from going though the prison system. But no, he used the time to manipulate them for his own purposes.

If a black man can make it to his late 30s in one piece, he stands a fine chance of living a plenty long life. Correct me if I'm wrong.

krugman nwries:
Blacks' low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood. African-American men who make it to age 65 can expect to live, and collect benefits, for an additional 14.6 years - not that far short of the 16.6-year figure for white men.

a large part of the discrepancy comes from higher infant mortality rates, but you couldn't find a racist angle for that one, could you?

"a large part of the discrepancy comes from higher infant mortality rates, but you couldn't find a racist angle for that one, could you?"
benjoya

Not to go off topic but an even bigger question is 'Why is America's infant mortality rate higher then Costa Rica's?' Could it be a lack of an effective, comprehensive National Healthcare System?

Riprather, you bet it is.

I pray that everyone lives as long as they want to, are filthy rich, and have sex 5 times per day when they are ninety.

Hell, I can't have sex five times a day and I'm in my young thirties.

krugman nwries

yes, krugman nwries. nwries; it's sanskrit for "writes profound and euphonious prose." everyone knows that.

I knew that.

Well, duh.

The Shrub isn't a bigot...he's selectively tolerant.

Oh, and Peter, luskin can't count, or doesn't know what to count, as per this little number.

So don't go trumpeting him as an expert to tear down my man Paul, he doesn't have the stones.