![AP's 'fact-check' ignores decades of research to discredit Trump on link between suicides and recessions](https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=22898761&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C53%2C0%2C53)
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The CDC has warned the "suicide rate rises and falls in connection with the economy"
The Associated Press ignored decades of research showing a close link between suicides and economic recessions in a "fact-check" the news agency published on Tuesday that attempted to discredit President Donald Trump for claiming an economic downturn caused by prolonged "lockdown" policies to battle the coronavirus could have serious public health consequences.
In its article, titled "Trump says suicides will increase 'by the thousands' if economy stays closed—experts say he's wrong," the AP argues "suicides tend to diminish in times of crisis as society pulls together."
The charge is misleading on several counts.
The AP's "fact-check" is built on a straw-man argument. President Trump did not say that continued social distancing efforts alone will drive a spike in suicides. He said that thousands may kill themselves if the U.S. were to plunge into a deep recession.
"People get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death. Probably and — I mean, definitely — would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."
President Trump made the comment as a warning that an economic collapse also carries its own major public health risks that are worth considering when determining when and how to re-open the American economy.
While the AP claims the "experts" it consulted said that President Trump is wrong on the impact of prolonged social distancing guidelines on mental health, the one specialist the news agency spoke with was actually hesitant to make a prediction.
"It is not a foregone conclusion that we will see increased suicide rates," said Dr. Christine Moutier of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention on the issue of whether quarantines themselves result in self-inflicted deaths. The link between suicide and economic depressions, which is what Trump was actually referring to, is far more clear. In fact, the AP buried in its own fact-check, as a passing reference, that suicides increased during the Great Depression.
Decades of social research back President Trump's contention: When unemployment levels rise during economic recessions so do suicides. Several major studies have examined the relationship between the two and determined as such: