Americans’ Struggle with Mental Health

It is no mystery why rates of anxiety and depression in the United States climbed in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. But then life began a slow return to normal. Why haven’t rates of distress returned to normal, too?

Self-reported anxiety and depression have declined from the peak they reached in November 2020, when 42.6 percent of adults said they had symptoms, according to the Household Pulse Survey, a Census Bureau tool that measures well-being. Since then, that figure has declined to 20.7 percent. That’s still double the 11 percent of Americans who said the same thing before the pandemic.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why. Researchers say a big reason for this stubbornly elevated distress is young people, whose low mood was not linked to the pandemic…