Working Paper: NBER ID: w25787
Authors: William H. Dow; Anna Gody; Christopher A. Lowenstein; Michael Reich
Abstract: Do minimum wages and the EITC mitigate rising “deaths of despair?” We leverage state variation in these policies over time to estimate event study and difference-in-differences models of deaths due to drug overdose, suicide, and alcohol-related causes. Our causal models find no significant effects on drug or alcohol-related mortality, but do find significant reductions in non-drug suicides. A 10 percent minimum wage increase reduces non-drug suicides among low-educated adults by 2.7 percent; the comparable EITC figure is 3.0 percent. Placebo tests and event-study models support our causal research design. Increasing both policies by 10 percent would likely prevent a combined total of more than 700 suicides each year.\n\n
Keywords: minimum wage; EITC; deaths of despair; suicide; mortality
JEL Codes: I1; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| 10% increase in minimum wage (J38) | 27% reduction in non-drug suicides (I12) |
| 10% increase in EITC (H31) | 30% reduction in non-drug suicides (I12) |
| minimum wage increases (J38) | significant reductions in non-drug suicides (I12) |
| EITC increases (H31) | significant reductions in non-drug suicides (I12) |
| minimum wage increases (J38) | no significant effects on drug-related mortality (I12) |
| EITC increases (H31) | no significant effects on alcohol-related mortality (I12) |
| minimum wage increases (J38) | larger reductions in suicides for women compared to men (J16) |