Poverty has an impact on the mental health of all Americans. Those living below the poverty line are three times more likely to have serious psychological distress as compared to those living above the poverty level.
The Great Recession, 2008: U.S. suicide rate was increasing by about 0.12 deaths per 100,000 people between 1999 and 2007, but when the recession hit in 2008, the rate began increasing by an average of 0.51 deaths per 100,000 people each year. This jump resulted in about 1,500 additional deaths from suicide each year after 2008.
The number of homeless Americans is hard to pin down, since homelessness is often a transient state, and due to the conflicting definitions of “homeless.” The best approximation is from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty in 2007, which states that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year.
This translates to approximately one percent of the U.S. population experiencing homelessness each year, almost 40 percent of them being children. 633,782: on any given day, the number of people experiencing homelessness in America.
The national rate of homelessness is 20 homeless people per 10,000 people in the general population. The rate for Veterans is 29 homeless Veterans per 10,000 Veterans in the general population.
Source: BestMSWPrograms.com
