The Palm Beach Post is reporting suicide calls jump amid economic woes [hyperlink].
A local hot line has seen a dramatic spike in suicide calls from people in Palm Beach County who are facing foreclosure and can?t pay their bills, according to numbers released today.
Since the start of the year, 256 people in the county told operators at the 211 hot line that they were thinking about suicide. Of those, 44 told operators that their main reason was that they had lost a job, were facing foreclosure, couldn?t afford to pay their bills or were homeless.
During the same period in 2007, from Jan. 1 to June 10, the hot line received 137 suicide calls from people in Palm Beach County. Only 15 of those gave economic reasons.
The callers? problems seem markedly different than in the past, said Susan Buza, executive director of 211 Palm Beach/Treasure Coast. Many callers, she said, have tried to find work for months.
Buza said she began adding up the numbers after operators noticed a rise in calls from people who could lose their homes.
?When we started looking at it, we were really shocked,? she said.
Bernanke should ask family members of those who commit suicide if the downturn has faded.
Spiking suicides are one thing I did not even think about in Things That Have Not Yet Happened [hyperlink].
One thing I have thought about a lot but failed to mention in that post was huge state budget cutbacks such as 20,000 Teacher Layoffs In California [hyperlink], real estate agents that have not had a sale for months, and pending massive layoffs in financial service industries at banks and brokerages.
?globaleconomicanalysis.
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