Americans are depressed. The solution? Throw money at it.

The US has one of the highest rates of depression in the world. Supporting people economically can help.

Samantha Lee/Insider

• The United States has a crisis of depression, but our solutions are too individualistic.
• Pandemic welfare programs have shown money helps mental health.
• We must agitate for a more equal society if we want a happier future.
• P.E. Moskowitz is an author, runs Mental Hellth, a newsletter about capitalism and psychology, and is a contributing opinion writer for Insider.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

The pandemic has been horrible. And yet, despite the hundreds of thousands of deaths, something curious has happened: People are happier than they've been in a long time. According to a Gallup poll from July, a record 59% of Americans say they're thriving. Levels of stress were found to be as low as they were before the pandemic too - though it's safe to assume that stress levels have gone back up recently as the pandemic wears on due to the rise of the Delta variant.

There are a few reasons for the big jump in life satisfaction, including the hope brought on by the widespread availability of vaccines and the subsequent reopening of restaurants, bars, and other places people socialize. But there is a less discussed, and equally, if not more important, reason people might be feeling so good these days: money.

During the pandemic, the government started several unprecedented programs that have stabilized or enhanced the lives of countless Americans. Most Americans were given thousands of dollars, no strings attached; unemployment was expanded to cover tens of millions of more people for much longer periods of time than it had before the pandemic; eviction moratoriums prevented Americans from the trauma of losing their homes.

These programs were responsible for a vast structural change in American inequality. Poverty, by some measures, dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in American history - declining by nearly 45%. The money spent by the government during the pandemic raised the income of many Americans beyond pre-pandemic levels. And it gave Americans more freedom, allowing some to quit dead-end, exploitative jobs.

The vast spending led to a direct increase in people's mental health. According to a University of Michigan study, Americans' mental wellbeing can be directly traced to the passage of the various economic relief bills. Before the first COVID bill passed, 68.6% of respondents said they spent several or more days feeling anxious or on edge. After the passage of the second relief bill, that number had dropped to 53.9%. Rates of depression fell drastically too.

Now, the government is allowing most of these programs to wither, forcing many into eviction and poverty and allowing many Americans' pandemic savings to dry up. If the money spent during the pandemic led to a direct increase in Americans' wellbeing, we can expect that the end of these programs will lead to a subsequent decrease in happiness and an increase in stress.

This all points to an uncomfortable truth: The way we address mental health in this country is completely inadequate. It focuses on the individual, rather than the systemic causes of unhappiness and mental distress. If we want to have any chance of adequately combatting our lackluster mental health, we need to do something our government is always reluctant to do - throw money at it.

Our economy is making us depressed

Most Americans who suffer from depression have few options; the vast majority simply see a primary care doctor - if they seek help at all. Nearly 80% of antidepressant prescriptions come from primary care doctors. Those who have good insurance or can afford out-of-pocket costs can go to therapy, but even the most expensive, comprehensive mental healthcare treatment doesn't address a large chunk of what causes us to struggle - a lack of economic security.

Study after study shows that money, job security, a financially stable life, and economic equality are all necessary for people to thrive. A 2017 study showed that money was the second largest cause of stress in the country. In a review of 115 studies on mental health, researchers found that nearly 80% showed a correlation between poverty and mental disorders. Unemployment increases the risk for depression two-fold. America's raging opiate crisis isn't just because of exploitative pharmaceutical companies, but also because tens of millions of Americans are living in communities without sufficient jobs and resources. Needing to work long hours to make ends meet also decreases happiness.

Simply living in an unequal society is bad for our mental health; inequality increases stress, decreases participation in communal life, and increases levels of violence. The United States is one of the most unequal societies on earth, so it's no surprise that the US has one of the highest rates of depression in the entire world.

Politicians have begun to acknowledge that we have a mental health crisis in this country - the Biden administration in March announced it would spend $2.5 billion to support community mental health centers, along with addiction treatment and recovery programs. Though this money will undoubtedly help, it doesn't address the root cause of so much of the country's distress. It doesn't matter how much therapy, medication, and other treatments people receive - if tens of millions of Americans struggle to put food on the table, find work, and live financially stable lives, the country's mental health will not significantly improve.

Mental health needs a political solution

But there's a reason politicians have not acknowledged this root cause - doing so would require a radical restructuring of society. A society in which work is guaranteed, poverty is eliminated, inequality is decreased, and citizens have economic stability would, essentially, be a socialist society, and socialism remains a very dirty world in American politics. It would, at the very least, require higher taxation on the rich, a reigning in of corporate greed, a higher minimum wage, and better childcare.

Though it may be unrealistic to expect the United States to rapidly transition to this kind of economy, it's obvious that many Americans are yearning for this kind of change. The relative success of Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary was proof that many Americans are ready for a restructuring of society. And the popularity of the government's pandemic welfare programs shows that the country is becoming more accustomed to the idea of a robust government that helps its citizens.

But even without radical, systemic change, we can look to smaller programs that have increased people's wellbeing for inspiration. If the small amount of money and benefits given to Americans during the pandemic vastly decreased depression and anxiety, imagine what making these programs permanent, or expanding them, could do.

Americans shouldn't have to wait for another crisis like a pandemic for our mental health to be adequately addressed. We must recognize that our depression, our disorders, our inability to cope with the world, is not (just) about our individual traumas or brain chemistry; it's a political problem that has a political solution.

This solution means we must agitate for a more equal future: for rent control, an end to evictions, a higher minimum wage. But to get there, we first have to take the preliminary step of politicizing our mental distress, of getting it out of the therapists' office and into the streets.

That could involve care collectives to help each other understand our mental health in a political context. It could mean community organizing that gets people out of their isolated lives - like the Black Panthers' free breakfast program.

"The point must be, rather, to destroy the material conditions that make us sick, the capitalist system that destroys people's lives, the inequalities that kill. Thus, creating another world together," Mikkel Krause Frantzen, the author of "Going Nowhere, Slow: The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression," wrote. "But to do that, to get to where that becomes possible, what is called for is not competition among the sick, but alliances of care that will make people feel less alone and less morally responsible for their illness."

If we want any hope of a happier future, we must fight for it.

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