The psychological toll of joblessness
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)
The Washington Post has a good article today on the psychological toll to America of high unemployment:
Joel Sarfati, a counselor for the Washington area’s long-term unemployed, has seen it all: Foreclosures, substance abuse, family battles and – worst of all – widespread depression that some experts say has reached startling proportions since the recession.
About 9 percent of Americans were defined as clinically depressed in data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, compared to an estimated 6.6 percent in data collected in 2001 and 2002.
“You’re 45, 50 years old, you’ve worked hard for the past 25 years, and all of the sudden you’re on the street, or your friends disappear like unemployment is a disease they can catch,” said Sarfati, the executive director of 40Plus of Greater Washington, an organization that brings together unemployed middle-aged professionals for job training, resume building and much needed moral support. “As this thing gets more drawn out, we see more and more people fall into a deep funk or dark place.”
As President Obama and Republican leaders argue over the best way to reduce 9.1 percent unemployment and revive a near-flatlining economy, less attention has been paid to the widespread emotional and psychological damage caused by long-term unemployment — and the drain it has on government resources and workforce productivity.
With an estimated three-quarters of the 14 million unemployed Americans out of work for more than six months and fully half out of work for more than two years, many jobless Americans are falling into despair as repeated attempts to find work come up short.
When people lose their jobs, they often are optimistic as they embark on a search for a new one, according to Ronald Kessler, a professor of health-care policy at Harvard Medical School and an expert on psychiatric disorders and data. “But after a while they get worn down and discouraged, and that’s when you start to see the mental health problems. And for the U.S., that time is now.”
And, of course, the global austerity fetish has been actively harmful as well. Not only is austerity adding to the unemployment toll, it is also making it harder for the nation’s unemployed to cope with the mental health issues associated with losing a job:
Many of these unemployed Americans cannot afford to seek professional help because they lost their employer-provided health insurance with their jobs. At the same time, federal, state and local governments have cut back on spending for mental health clinics and outreach in response to budget crises spawned by the bad economy.
It could get even worse if Medicaid funding of mental health services is put on the chopping block later this fall, as a congressional “supercommittee” hunts for spending cuts to help reduce the federal budget deficit. Medicaid is the main source of funding of public mental health services for young people and adults, accounting for nearly half of state mental health budgets, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
The nation faces “a silent mental health epidemic,” according to Carl Van Horn, a professor of public policy and economics at Rutgers and head of the Heldrich Center.
“Losing a job is more than just a financial crisis for people,” Van Horn said. “It creates numerous other damage, stress, anxiety, substance abuse, fights and conflicts in the family and feelings of embarrassment and depression.”
This will lead to more suicide and more homelessness, issues that America has already mostly swept under the rug and pretended don’t exist.
Of course, America is not the only industrialized nation dealing with high unemployment. But it is the only industrialized nation with such a pathetic social safety net, especially when it comes to mental health assistance. It’s also the only nation that culturally treats unemployment as though it were the fault of the job seeker, rather than the fault of the society that cannot find them productive work at a living wage.
But I guess as long as people have the freedom to steal billions of dollars skimming off the economy in speculative schemes, America will continue to be the greatest nation on earth. As we all know, the best way to judge a society is by how it treats its most fortunate.
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