ABSTRACT
The concept of painless unemployment helps to justify public acceptance of recession as a necessary tool of public policy. The case for the relative painlessness of modern unemployment rests on the assumption that, because of the expansion of government benefits, unemployment no longer results in significant economic deprivation. The Council found that measuring the personal impact of unemployment is not simple, but that there are clear correlations between unemployment and a number of personal problems: ill health, psychological impairment, family stability, and crime. Unemployment has a demonstrated effect on the incidence of depression and other forms of psychological impairment. Explanations for the link between unemployment and mental health have focused on the concept of stress. According to the research, the suicide rate has been so closely tied to change in unemployment over a period of time that it is one of the more reliable indicators of the economy in the United States.
