White House says Biden will use SOTU address to combat ‘unprecedented’ mental health crisis

President Biden will promote a new “988” crisis hotline and outline funding to combat the harmful effects of social media when he devotes a portion of his State of the Union Address to the “unprecedented mental health crisis” in the country, the White House said.

The three-digit hotline is available in some parts of the country, but a July launch will make it available nationwide as part of an interconnected network of local crisis centers that can respond to calls and texts. Mr. Biden plans to propose nearly $700 million in funding in his fiscal 2023 budget to “staff up and shore up” local crisis centers.

The White House blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for fueling the mental health crisis.

“Two out of five adults report symptoms of anxiety or depression. And, Black and Brown communities are disproportionately under-treated — even as their burden of mental illness has continued to rise,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “Even before the pandemic, rates of depression and anxiety were inching higher. But the grief, trauma, and physical isolation of the last two years have driven Americans to a breaking point.”

The sprawling plan focuses on investments in training mental health staff and ensuring that medical workers do not suffer from mental burnout after a bruising pandemic. It also proposes resources for early childhood intervention and mental health improvement in jails and prisons.

Also, Mr. Biden wants to invest $5 million to study social media’s harms and launch a national Center of Excellence on Social Media and Mental Wellness.

“Social media platforms are designed to be addictive, too often deliver age-inappropriate content, promote unhealthy social comparisons, and enable harassment, child sexual exploitation, stalking, and cyber-bullying,” the White House said. “Children, adolescents and teens are uniquely vulnerable to harmful and dangerous content online. Other democratic countries have been acting to prevent and reduce the online harms to their children.”

The White House said the pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems among youth, in particular, leading to social isolation, anxiety, and learning loss.

Congressional Republicans have criticized the administration for being too slow to ease masking guidance for schoolchildren or resist teachers unions who’ve tried to continue remote learning instead of in-person instruction. They say those pandemic restrictions exacerbated recent harm to children.