Studies have concluded that suicide rates are more closely correlated with economically disadvantaged groups of people than most any other indicator. Economic hardships can push people into the territories of dismay in a way that very few other pressures can. A new analysis, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, has concluded that increases in minimum wages can decreases suicide rates among adults between the ages of 18-64 without an educational degree above high school.
The researchers decided to see if they could identify how “economic interventions such as minimum wage policies could ameliorate these risk factors,” for those who die by suicide. They used “difference-in-differences (DD) models to estimate the effect of an increased minimum wage on suicide rates among US adults with a high school education or less, using data from all 50 states and Washington, DC, from 1990 to 2015.” Because people with college diplomas or higher have a much lower chance of working minimum wage jobs, the researchers compared that demographic with the adults who received a high school education or less.
In so doing, they discovered that while there was predictably no change in the suicide rates for adults 18-64 with a college education or higher, they found a “6% reduction in suicide for every dollar increase in the minimum wage.” The researchers point out that there are myriad economic factors at play that they did not account for, including race disparities. But, they point out that this study shows that as a part of the many kinds of economic interventions our society has at its disposal, increasing the minimum wage can lead to better public health outcomes.