Governments gave their citizens cash to weather the lockdowns. For many poor people, the pandemic money exceeded the regular social assistance and wages they would have otherwise earned. Poverty dropped in the U.S., and despite all the grief and isolation and anxiety, suicide rates dropped along with it. In Canada, where the emergency government payments were large and lasting, the suicide rate dropped 30 percent, according to provisional data. Altogether, suicides rates in 2020 either decreased or stayed flat in 21 high and middle-income countries (there’s very little data on the pandemic’s effect on suicide in poor countries). Cash transfers to poor people appear to have reduced suicides.

The 2020 decline in suicides is just the latest evidence that poverty drives suicide. In recent years, researchers have found that suicide rates are the highest among the poorest people. The children of people on welfare are twice as likely to die by suicide. Homeless people kill themselves about 10 times as often as people with housing.

Poor people are more vulnerable to suicide because the strain of poverty drastically increases a person’s odds of developing a mental illness. Low socioeconomic status causes roughly half of mental illnesses. People are much more likely to develop illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, and even schizophrenia when they don’t have enough money to meet their material needs. Researchers have long found that suicide rates and psychiatric hospitalizations reliably go up in the wake of rising unemployment.