Risk of depression is nearly twice as high for unemployed Americans

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http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-sn-depression-unemployment-link-20140609-story.html



Job seekers line up for a career fair in New York City. A new Gallup poll finds a strong link between the amount of time a person has been out of work and the risk that he or she will become depressed

Risk of depression is nearly twice as high for unemployed Americans
Karen Kaplan
June 9, 2014

Unemployment takes a significant toll on the mental health of workers, especially those who have been out of their jobs for at least 27 weeks – what the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers the “long-term unemployed.”

The longer a person has been out of work, the greater the chances that he or she will develop a clinical case of depression, according to data from a new Gallup poll. Among Americans who have been without a job for three to five weeks, 10% said they were depressed or were being treated for depression. That figure rose to 17% for those who have been out of work for six months to one year. Among people who have crossed the one-year mark, 19% were battling depression, the poll found.

Overall, unemployed Americans were nearly twice as likely as working Americans to be depressed – 12.4% versus 6.4%, according to Gallup.

But the situation was worse for people without any work at all. The survey found that 12.3% of the short-term unemployed (who had been jobless for fewer than 27 weeks) were depressed, as were 18% of the long-term unemployed.