The American Association of Suicidology says:
"There is a clear and direct relationship between rates of unemployment and suicide. The peak rate of suicide in 1933 occurred one year after the total US unemployment rate reached 25% of the labor force. Similar findings have been documented internationally. At the individual level, unemployed individuals have between two and four times the suicide rate of those employed. As well, economic strain and personal financial crises have been well documented as precipitating events in individual deaths by suicide. Stressful life events, financial and others, have significant impact on those vulnerable to suicide where typical coping mechanisms are compromised by the effects of mental disorder, substance use, acute psychiatric symptoms, and a host of other risk factors associated with suicide.
Of current concern is the high rate of home foreclosures. More than a million people recently have lost their homes, about as many as did in the Great Depression when the population was about half what it is today. For most Americans, our homes are our primary investment and the locus of our identities and social support systems. When combined with the loss of job, home loss has been found to be one of the most common economic strains associated with suicides. In contrast to many other developed nations, the US provides little cushion to buffer these strains -- unemployment benefits are generally limited in duration and are considerably less than full pay levels, there is no national health insurance, etc."
Suicide rates can be brought to an extreme low once and for all through implementing a Living Income Guaranteed - where each one who is unemployed is unconditionally provided with an income that is sufficient to acquire what one needs to live a dignified life.
In many first world countries - as economic depression sets in, psychological depression follows suit right away - because security is taken away, because the future becomes uncertain, because if the economy does not start growing in time - every middle-class income household's livelihood is in jeopardy - never mind the lower class. When the depression persists and suicidal thoughts gain the upper hand, children lose fathers and mothers - families are torn apart. Such trauma can be prevented through ensuring a stable economic system. Providing a Living Income Guaranteed must therefore go hand in hand with the necessary changes in the economic and political systems so as to ensure lasting stability and sustainability - instead of being at the mercy of economic polarity-swings.
For more information - read up on the Living Income Guaranteed Proposal on the Living Income Website: http://livingincome.me/wiki/The_Living_Income_Guaranteed_Proposal
Also check out the google hangout discussions on the Living Income Guaranteed YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BIGuaranteed?feature=watch
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