Social Class and Mental Illness

(This blog post is somewhat a study in intersectionality, which is essentially the principle that different forms of oppression are all connected, and takes special interest in people who identify with more than one minority group: black women, disabled trans people, etc.)

A member of my family was very fortunate last summer to get a well-paying job in software consultation. With the knowledge that they were on a significant number of medications to control Type I Bipolar Disorder, I asked my mother if she thought the company's healthcare plan would cover our family member's medical needs. My mother informed me that there would probably never be a job that would cover all of their healthcare needs, and some of it would always have to be covered by personal cost and insurance.

Surprise! Having a mental illness— incidentally, most of all bipolar disorder —is really, really expensive. The lifetime cost per case of bipolar disorder for chronic or non-responsive bipolar can be up to $624,785. That's about fourteen years of an Ivy League-caliber college. Few people have that money simply lying around.

The other issue with poverty and mental illness is its cyclical nature. At first, it can seem like a chicken-and-egg question— are people poor because they're mentally ill and therefore have a harder time holding a job and paying for treatment, or are people mentally ill because they're poor and feel that they have few prospects for the future? Of course, each person's case is unique. But in the end, the cause itself is not as important as the fact that when a mentally ill person falls on hard times, its extremely difficult to escape.

How many times have we, walking down the street, written off a homeless person as a "crazy bum," when perhaps in a different situation they could be any other middle-class wage-earner? After all, 20-25% of the American homeless population is severely mentally ill (compared to 6% of the country as a whole). Homelessness can also complicate the consistency and availability of treatment of mentally ill people.


Though the cycle can be a downwards spiral, it can also be a positive pattern. For example, better mental health services can also combat homelessness. It also can see overall jail times decrease. Perhaps by better funding mental health services, we can actually save money as a society by lowering the number of people who rely on the state through food services or even incarceration. As a sort of preventative medicine, providing job resources for the mentally ill and mental health resources for the poor can make sure that no one gets caught in a vicious cycle.