Poor worker mental health costs the U.S. $48 billion per year, survey suggests

Jobs in the U.S. are more likely to hurt workers' mental health than to benefit it, and that comes at great cost to the economy, according to a new poll.

 A Gallup survey of nearly 16,000 working adults in the U.S. found that nearly one in five workers rate their mental health as only "fair" or "poor," with those employees taking an average of 12 unplanned days off annually. Extrapolated across the entire workforce, the collective missed days cost the economy nearly $48 billion annually in lost productivity, the researchers said.

Workers in a better frame of mind have 2.5 days worth of unplanned absences a year. Broken down, the cost of a missed workday is at least $340 per day for full-time workers and $170 per day for part-time workers, according to Gallup.