If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.”
As a teenager, Rei Scott spent several weeks living out of a car with four family members and their dog. Each day, Scott worried about where they would spend the following night.
ELEVEN MINUTES
Someone in America dies by suicide every 11 minutes. It’s a tragic and entrenched problem. A new approach to prevention shifts the focus from stopping harm in moments of crisis to upstream policies that give people reasons to live.
By Aneri Pattani April 29, 2026
One day at school, Scott snuck away to the bathroom and called the national suicide hotline.
Scott, who is transgender and nonbinary, explained to the hotline counselor that the family had struggled with poverty for years. They had lived in crumbling homes with water leaks, or a family member’s basement with no privacy. Sometimes the family worried about having enough food. The stress and anxiety were constant, and Scott had been suicidal many times.
The counselor seemed shocked into silence, Scott said. Eventually, the person provided reassurance and kindness.
But what Scott really needed that day a decade ago and many times since was a fix for the economic difficulties that had become an unbearable weight.
“It can definitely help to have someone who can listen, but when you’re struggling to eat and you don’t have a roof to be under, I honestly don’t think words can go as far as you need them to,” said Scott, who now studies social work at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
Over the years, Scott has been directed to hospitals and therapists. But those generally don’t address core problems, such as a broken-down car or an eviction notice.
“There’s so many times in my life where I’ve thought if I had $5,000, I wouldn’t even be suicidal right now,” Scott said.
People don’t typically think of suicide as an issue of economics, but it often is.
Decades of research shows that unemployment, low income, high debt, unstable housing, and food insecurity make people more likely to kill themselves. Conversely, things that bring down people’s cost of living — such as increasing the minimum wage, providing food assistance, offering tax credits, and expanding health insurance coverage — are linked to lower suicide rates.
It makes sense. If someone can cover their basic needs, their life will feel better.
Other countries have been incorporating this understanding into their efforts for some time. But because suicide prevention in the U.S. has historically been seen as a medical issue — the responsibility of clinicians who can provide medication or therapy — economic solutions are frequently left out of the equation.
Some advocates and people with suicidal experiences, like Scott, are trying to change that. They say traditional approaches to suicide prevention haven’t succeed …