| | |  Health & Beauty | November 2009 
US Economy Goes Down and Suicides Go Up
 Capitol Hill Blue
go to original
November 23, 2009
| | |
Suicides in the United States may be increasing during the worst recession since the Great Depression.
But the recession may or may not be the reason more people are taking their lives.
Like so much about the economy, the numbers aren't clear.
For a nation that thrives on statistics, the "official" stats for suicides in this nation aren't up to date and lag about a year behind.
So The Wall Street did its own number of crunching and found the rate for for those who take their own lives is up about 2.6 percent - give a percentage point or two.
Reports The Journal:
| Early signs suggest the number of suicides in the U.S. crept up during the worst recession in decades, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of states that account for about 40% of the U.S. population.
Available data, still incomplete, suggest that this recession, like past ones, coincided with an uptick in suicides. The data from 19 states find an increase in suicides in the recessionary year of 2008 from 2007. Those states historically account for about half of annual suicides in the U.S. Calls to suicide hotlines are rising. And suicides in the workplace and the military - a small sliver all of self-inflicted deaths - were up in 2008.
Official data on suicides in the U.S. lag, and a 2008 national tally isn't yet available. In 2007, there were 33,185 suicides, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with an average of about 32,800 in the previous three years.
A Journal survey of the 33 largest states by population found 19 have data for 2008. In all, those 19 reported a total of 15,335 suicides in 2008, up about 2.3% from the previous years. |
|
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us