Scott Bessent’s Admission, Jarring Deaths Of Despair Numbers Point To Dark Times Ahead

I’m seeing two alarm bells pointing to dark times ahead for Americans.

First, Department of Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent made a telling admission Sunday. During a conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Bessent argued that the U.S. economy is in “good shape,” while adding that some “sections,” namely housing, are already in recession. (Subscribe to MR. RIGHT, a free weekly newsletter about modern masculinity)

“I think that we are in good shape, but I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession and the Fed has caused a lot of distributional problems there with their policies,” Bessent said. “We’ve seen the biggest hindrance for housing here is our mortgage rates. So if the Fed brings down mortgage rates, then they can end this housing recession. Low-end consumers who have gotten killed under President Biden, these high rates are hurting them because they have debt, not assets. So I think that there are sections of the economy that could go into recession.”

The second is a resurfaced report from Congress’s Joint Economic Committee of Republicans in 2019. Citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, the report found that deaths of despair were higher throughout the 2010s than they were during the Great Depression. (Deaths of despair then skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.)

An anonymous X user added to the graph by analyzing more post-pandemic CDC data. The user found that the rate is climbing much, much higher still than during the Great Depression.

A CRISIS: ‘Deaths of Despair’ are Skyrocketing

-Deaths of Despair are now *triple* the rate during the Great Depression
-Deaths of Despair have increased 2.7x since 2000
-Drug overdose deaths are over 5x the rate in 2000
-Alcohol deaths are 4.6x higher than the Great Depression pic.twitter.com/oF3qVjCTgL

— Robert (infra 🏛️⌛️) (@infraa_) November 1, 2025

The rising trend line aligns with other studies showing that deaths of despair among young people have caused their generation’s life expectancy to flat line while older generations are seeing their life expectancy increase. (RELATED: Everyone’s Life Expectancy Going Up Except For One Demographic. Trump Trying To Do Something About It)