That’s the final tragedy of a factory job: after working ten hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, just to get a pension, far too many die before they get to enjoy it. Losing a job can be deadly in ways that researchers are just beginning to understand. Men with high seniority who are laid off die at a rate at least 50 percent higher than that of their peers. The first year out is the deadliest. The danger declines over time, but mortality rates stay measurably higher, even twenty years later.
