80 Percent of Adults with Severe Mental Illness are Jobless

A report released Thursday showed that about 80 percent of adults with serious mental health issues are unemployed, even when 60 percent want to work and 40 percent can succeed in the workplace with the right help.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, adults who deal with a number of ailments face quite a disadvantage in the workplace.

In 2003, statistics found that about 23 percent of people who received public mental health services were unemployed. This year, only 17.8 percent of them have full-time jobs.

"It isn't surprising. We knew that mental health services really took it on the chin during the recession. Employment rates have already been dismal to begin with, and when the supports were eroded, people with mental illness lost support and lost jobs," said Sita Diehl, director of state policy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness

The researchers note that the unemployment rates may be higher among the mentally ill as some are unable to keep a home or may end up in jail. Furthermore, lack of employment support can even lead to homelessness within the same demographic.

Robert Drake, professor at the Dartmouth Pyschiatric research Center, said that a year of supported employment for a mentally ill individual costs about $4,000, in which job coaches help participants with attempting to gain new vocations. 

USA Today is now working to publish a series of stories within the next year about various human and financial costs that the country has to pay because of the 10 million mentally ill cared for.