[lapcat]

I suggest you take a second look at that article:

> Last year, according to the new data, the number jumped by more than 1,000, to 49,449 — about a 3% increase vs. the year before. The provisional data comes from U.S. death certificates and is considered almost complete, but it may change slightly as death information is reviewed in the months ahead.

The CDC hasn't calculated an exact final rate yet, but we already know the suicides are approximately 50k and that the US population is approximately 30M, so yes, I have a lot of evidence for my claim.

The data may change "slightly". You're making a mountain out of a molehill with the conceit that the rate may somehow magically become huge when the data is all counted.

[barrysteve]

He's right, include deaths of despair by overdoses and alcohol. It's way over the 'norm'.

68k in 1995. 158k in 2018.

Measuring a societies' success by the suicide rate has sent the wrong signal. Even the authority whispers disbelief in it's own populace into the headlines.

[lapcat]

> He's right, include deaths of despair by overdoses and alcohol. It's way over the 'norm'.

> 68k in 1995. 158k in 2018.

Yet it's still not high enough to explain "Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older" or to support the claim "those who are happy enough not to off themselves in one given way or another will scew the statistics".