988 is taking 15% more contacts than a year ago — and most states still have no plan to pay for it

If you are in crisis, call or text 988. It is free, confidential and available 24 hours a day. This article is about the system behind that number, not a reason to hesitate before using it.

Four years after replacing a ten-digit hotline with three digits, 988 has handled 23.3 million contacts — 15.8 million calls, 4.2 million texts and 3.4 million chats. As of March 2026, volume was running 15% above a year earlier and nearly 50% above two years earlier.

That growth is the point. A crisis line that more people use is a crisis line that is working. It is also a crisis line whose costs rise every year, against a funding structure that was designed to be temporary.

The text and chat surge is the story

Calls grew 87% from launch through late 2025. Texts grew 260%. That ratio tells you something about who is reaching out and how they prefer to do it — and it has operational consequences, because a text conversation occupies a counselor differently and for longer than a phone call.

Centers staffed for a call-volume model are absorbing a text-volume reality. That is a hiring problem before it is anything else, and hiring is precisely what the funding gap prevents.

Why the money question is unresolved

988 was launched with federal funding that was understood to be startup money. The long-term model was always meant to shift toward states, several of which have authorized a small telecom fee — the same mechanism that funds 911. Many states have not.

The result is a patchwork: some states with a dedicated funding stream and staffed local centers, others relying on a mix of grants and general funds that has to be re-argued every budget cycle. A GAO review found officials in four of eleven selected states citing funding limits as preventing hiring against rising demand.

The consequence of an underfunded center is not a busy signal. It is a longer wait and, past a threshold, a call routed out of state to someone who does not know the local resources — which undercuts the part of the service that connects people to help near them.

The specialized services are the most exposed

988 includes subnetworks — a veterans line, Spanish-language service, and specialized support for LGBTQ+ youth. That last one was discontinued in July 2025 when its federal funding was fully expended, and restored through the 2026 appropriations act.

That sequence is the structural problem in miniature: a service with demonstrated demand, dependent on a line item that has to be renewed, going dark and coming back. Specialized services are the first thing cut and the hardest to rebuild, because they depend on trained staff who do not wait around during a funding lapse.

What to know as a user

None of this should change whether you call. The service works, most contacts resolve on the line, and emergency services are involved in only a small minority of cases — a fact worth knowing, because fear of a police response stops a lot of people from calling.

What happens on the call, how the police question actually resolves, and what alternatives exist if that remains a concern are covered in our guide to 988. If what you need is ongoing care rather than crisis support, sliding scale and low-cost therapy covers where that genuinely exists.