Minimum wage: $1 increase could reduce US suicide rates, study finds - CNN - 0 views
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A new 25-year observational study published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that a $1 increase in the minimum wage resulted in an estimated 3.4% to 5.9% decrease in suicide rates among adults ages 18 to 64, and a $2 increase could have prevented an estimated 40,000 suicides alone between 2009 and 2015.
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In 2017, there were an estimated 1.4 million attempted suicides among American adults and 47,173 suicide-related deaths. An estimated 1.7% of unemployed US adults attempted suicide in 2017 compared with 0.4% of those working full-time and 0.7% of those working part-time, the study said.
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The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and 29 states and the District of Columbia pay more, while 21 states pay the federal rate. If the minimum wage had increased by $1 from 2009 to 2015 — following peak unemployment in 2009 — the researchers estimated that 13,800 suicides could have been prevented among people in that age group with a high school education or less. A $2 increase in the minimum wage could have prevented an estimated 25,900 suicides in the same period, the study says.
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