Calls to Suicide Hotlines Skyrocket Along with Unemployment | Poverty in America | Change.org

Wayne Zickefoose was facing a desperate situation. With an impending foreclosure and a mountain of credit card debt, he must have felt there was no way out. On June 13th, he picked up a handgun and shot his wife and 3-year-old son before killing himself.

The tragedy isn't just an isolated incident. As joblessness rates rise, people are getting desperate. One of the saddest signs of the continuing recession to date, calls to suicide hotlines have risen nearly 20 percent.

We've chronicled how many people have been without a job for over two years, and how companies have begun to discriminate against the unemployed. Legislators are even making unemployment synonymous with criminal behavior, calling for drug testing for people receiving jobless benefits. Add to that serious debt, eviction, foreclosure and the like, and it's easy to see how it has become a perfect storm that is likely leading to rising suicide rates.

Although federal statistics on suicide rates are usually two to three years behind, counting the number of calls coming into a suicide hot line is a much more timely measure of how many people are facing desperate circumstances. The National Suicide Prevention Network, which operates hotlines around the country, says rates of calls have jumped 18 percent just between January and May of this year.