The Pentagon’s annual suicide report for 2024 is delayed because of the government shutdown, officials claimed.
The annual report, which includes rates of suicides and attempts across the active duty, Reserve and National Guard forces, typically comes out in the fall and addresses numbers from the previous calendar year. The delay of the report’s release was covered by Business Insider, which got few answers from Pentagon officials who said they had “nothing to announce at this time.”
Since then, Pentagon officials have attributed the delay to the government shutdown, which ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 last year.
“Due to the lapse in appropriations, the report — which is typically published in the fall — will now be released in early 2026,” an official said in a statement to Task & Purpose.
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Based on that reasoning, the report’s delay yet again highlights the unforeseen impacts of a government shutdown on the military. Effects from the 2025 government shutdown — which lasted 43 days, making it the longest in American history — caused troops to miss or receive incorrect paychecks, brought issues with emergency loans, and extended service obligations for soldiers nearing their separation.
When the report is released, it is distributed to Congress and posted to the public on the Defense Suicide Prevention Office website. Journalists covering the military typically get briefed on the numbers, long-term trends, and prevention efforts employed across the services — like implementation of the Brandon Act, a law passed by Congress aiming to give service members more access to mental health resources without career interference.
The latest annual report released in November 2024 found that suicide rates among active duty troops, spouses and dependents have increased since 2011. The report, which covered trends from 2023, noted “gradual” increases in suicide rates since 2011 across the active duty force and “stable” trends for the National Guard and Reserve troops.
In the last year, the Pentagon has not reported any major changes to suicide prevention efforts or implementation of new policies aimed at service member mental health. The most recent top-down effort among the services came from Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who released a memo ahead of the new year, calling on leaders to do daily checks of their soldiers.
“The Department of War remains steadfast in our commitment to suicide prevention. The Annual Report on Suicide in the Military offers validated data to support focused and effective prevention efforts; strengthen the health, safety, and well-being of our warfighters and their families; and advance force readiness,” officials said in the statement.
