Great piece on Democracy Now! about the new book The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills.
The authors estimate there have been more than 10,000 additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the United States since governments started introducing austerity programs in the aftermath of the economic crisis.
Austerity isn't just bad for the economy: it's bad for the health of citizens.
The authors analyzed "natural experiments" to show that it isn't simply bad economic times that lead to depression, suicide, and alcoholism—it's how governments respond to bad economic times.