Seven Charts Show Pandemic’s Toll On Americans’ Mental Health

Raghavan Mayur -

The Pandemic is taking a heavy toll on Americans’ mental health.  We compared the latest data on symptoms of anxiety and depression to a comparable benchmark from 2019.  The comparison shows huge increases.  For example,

  • 22.6% of Americans had depression symptoms last month compared to the 2019 benchmark of 6.5%, a 3.4-fold increase.
  • 27.8% of Americans had anxiety symptoms last month, up from 8.1% in 2019, a 3.4-fold increase.
  • 32.1% of Americans reported anxiety and or depression symptoms last month, up from 10.8% in 2019, a threefold increase.

The latest data for our analysis comes from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.  It asks four questions about mental health over the previous seven days, two relating to anxiety symptoms and two relating to symptoms of depression.