Austerity Kills: Crisis and unemployment, deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes
The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century. People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs. In the United States, the suicide rate, which had slowly risen since 2000, jumped during and after the 2007-9 recession. In a new book, we estimate that 4,750 “excess” suicides — that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict — occurred from 2007 to 2010. Rates of such suicides were significantly greater in the states that experienced the greatest job losses. Deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes in 2009.
David Stuckler & Sanjay Basu, "Austerity Kills," May 12, 2013, [online] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/how-austerity-kills.html?pagew...