Costs of Depression

According to this article:

The cost of depression (lost productivity and increased medical expenses) is $83 billion each year which exceeds the costs of the war in Afghanistan (Greenberg, et al., 2003).

Depression is the leading cause of medical disability for people aged 14 to 44 (Stewart, Ricci, Chee, Hahn, & Morganstein, 2003). Depressed people lose 5.6 hours of productive work every week when they are depressed (Stewart, 2003). Eighty percent of depressed people are impaired in their daily functioning (Pratt & Brody, 2008). Fifty percent of the loss of work productivity is due to absenteeism and short-term disability (R. C. Kessler, et al., 1999). In any 30 day period, depressed workers have 1.5 to 3.2 more short-term disability days (Druss, Schlesinger, & Allen, 2001).

See also Unhealthy People are Poor People ...and vice versa.

The Economic Burden of Mental Illness A Fact Sheet