Treatment design, health outcomes, and demographic categories in the literature on minimum wages and health

Leigh, James

doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2021.101043

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Many (although, not all) of these studies have estimated that increases in minimum wages were associated with population health benefits, such as a decrease in the prevalence of smoking, lower rates of suicide, a lower probability of poor mental health, a reduced risk of being underweight for women, higher self-rated health, fewer health conditions, and—consistent with what was observed in this study—decreased all-cause mortality as well as mortality from cardiovascular disease . Of note, in this literature, studies classified as having quality designs (eg, longitudinal studies surveilling the same participants over time, studies that define groups most likely affected by treatment based on wages) tended to support a positive association between population health improvements with increased minimum wages . There are a number of proposed theoretical mechanisms by which wage increases may lead to health improvements and thereby reduce mortality, including that they improve affordability of health-promoting goods and services .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Relatedly, prior studies capitalizing on changes in minimum wage policy and using quasi-experimental and design-based analytic approaches (eg, difference in difference) have examined various health impacts of differences in state-and federallevel minimum wages. 58,59 Many (although, not all [60][61][62] ) of these studies have estimated that increases in minimum wages were associated with population health benefits, such as a decrease in the prevalence of smoking, 58 lower rates of suicide, 63,64 a lower probability of poor mental health, 23 a reduced risk of being underweight for women, 65 higher self-rated health, fewer health conditions, 66,67 and-consistent with what was observed in this study-decreased all-cause mortality 68 as well as mortality from cardiovascular disease. 68,69 Of note, in this literature, studies classified as having quality designs (eg, longitudinal studies surveilling the same participants over time, studies that define groups most likely affected by treatment based on wages) tended to support a positive association between population health improvements with increased minimum wages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…68,69 Of note, in this literature, studies classified as having quality designs (eg, longitudinal studies surveilling the same participants over time, studies that define groups most likely affected by treatment based on wages) tended to support a positive association between population health improvements with increased minimum wages. 59 There are a number of proposed theoretical mechanisms by which wage increases may lead to health improvements and thereby reduce mortality, 25,58 including that they improve affordability of health-promoting goods and services. 58 Providing some support to this mechanism, some prior work offers evidence that minimum wage increases are associated with increases in individually purchased health insurance coverage 66 and decreases in financial stress 66 and that municipalities or states with higher minimum wages have lower population proportions of poverty and unmet medical needs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low hourly wage is a proposed occupational health hazard and has been previously shown in observational studies to be associated with faster cognitive decline, higher BMI, and hypertension, all of which may predict earlier mortality. Relatedly, prior studies capitalizing on changes in minimum wage policy and using quasi-experimental and design-based analytic approaches (eg, difference in difference) have examined various health impacts of differences in state- and federal-level minimum wages . Many (although, not all) of these studies have estimated that increases in minimum wages were associated with population health benefits, such as a decrease in the prevalence of smoking, lower rates of suicide, a lower probability of poor mental health, a reduced risk of being underweight for women, higher self-rated health, fewer health conditions, and—consistent with what was observed in this study—decreased all-cause mortality as well as mortality from cardiovascular disease .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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History of Low Hourly Wage and All-Cause Mortality Among Middle-aged Workers

Kezios

Calónico

et al. 2023

JAMA

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ImportanceEarning a low wage is an increasingly recognized public health concern, yet little research exists on the long-term health consequences of sustained low-wage earning.ObjectiveTo examine the association of sustained low-wage earning and mortality in a sample of workers with hourly wage reported biennially during peak midlife earning years.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis longitudinal study included 4002 US participants, aged 50 years or older, from 2 subcohorts of the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2018) who worked for pay and reported earning hourly wages at 3 or more time points during a 12-year period during their midlife (1992-2004 or 1998-2010). Outcome follow-up occurred from the end of the respective exposure periods until 2018.ExposuresLow-wage—less than the hourly wage for full-time, full-year work at the federal poverty line—earning history was categorized as never earning a low wage, intermittently earning a low wage, and sustained earning a low wage.Main Outcomes and MeasuresCox proportional hazards and additive hazards regression models sequentially adjusted for sociodemographics, and economic and health covariates were used to estimate associations between low-wage history and all-cause mortality. We examined interaction with sex or employment stability on multiplicative and additive scales.ResultsOf the 4002 workers (aged 50-57 years at the beginning of exposure period and 61-69 years at the end), 1854 (46.3%) were female; 718 (17.9%) experienced employment instability; 366 (9.1%) had a history of sustained low-wage earning; 1288 (32.2%) had intermittent low-wage earning periods; and 2348 (58.7%) had never earned a low wage. In unadjusted analyses, those who had never earned low wages experienced 199 deaths per 10 000 person-years, those with intermittent low wages, 208 deaths per 10 000 person-years, and those with sustained low wages, 275 deaths per 10 000 person-years. In models adjusted for key sociodemographic variables, sustained low-wage earning was associated with mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.35; 95% CI, 1.07-1.71) and excess deaths (66; 95% CI, 6.6-125); these findings were attenuated with additional adjustments for economic and health covariates. Significant excess death and elevated mortality risk were observed for workers with sustained low-wage exposure and employment fluctuations (eg, for sustained low-wage × employment fluctuated, HR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.35-3.53; for sustained low-wage × stable employment, HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.89,-1.54; P for interaction = .003).Conclusions and RelevanceSustained low-wage earning may be associated with elevated mortality risk and excess deaths, especially when experienced alongside unstable employment. If causal, our findings suggest that social and economic policies that improve the financial standing of low-wage workers (eg, minimum wage laws) could improve mortality outcomes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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History of Low Hourly Wage and All-Cause Mortality Among Middle-aged Workers

Kezios

Calónico

et al. 2023

JAMA

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“…R esearch into the effects of minimum wage laws on public health has been rapidly expanding; more than 60 articles have been published in recent years. 1 Minimum-wage-and-health research is popular, in part, because minimum wage laws are viewed as exerting exogenous, causal forces on wages. But laws are not the only way to raise wages; unions can too, as extensive economic research demonstrates.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating Effects of Wages on Smoking Prevalence Using Labor Unions as Instrumental Variables

Leigh¹,

Chakalov²

2023

J Occup Environ Med

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Objectives: To test for the effects of wages on smoking using labor unions as instrumental variables. Methods: We analyzed four waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (2013 to 2019 alternate years). The overall sample included workers aged 18 to 70 years in 2013 and subsamples within blue + clerical/white-collar and private/public sector jobs (N = 37,117 to 8446 personyears). We used two instrumental variables: worker's union membership and states' right-to-work laws. Results: $1 (2019 US dollars) increases in wagesper-hour resulted in 1.3 (P < 0.001) percentage point decreases in smoking prevalence (8.2% decreases at the smoking mean). Larger effect sizes and strong statistical significance were found for blue-collar + clerical and private-sector subsamples; smaller sizes and insignificance were found for public-sector and white-collar subsamples. Conclusions: Unions increase wages, and higher wages, in turn, reduce smoking. Wages and labor unions are underappreciated social determinants of health.

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Conflicting economic policies and mental health: Evidence from the UK national living wage and benefits freeze

Akanni,

Lenhart,

Morton

2024

J Policy Anal Manage

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This study evaluates the mental health effects of two simultaneously implemented but conflicting policies in the UK: the National Living Wage and the benefits freeze policy. We employed the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) DID estimator to evaluate the heterogeneous policy effects, and we found that NLW leads to positive improvements in mental health. Also, we find the negative impact of the benefits freeze policy constricts the NLW effects. Our result is robust to the sensitivity analysis of the parallel trend assumption and the comparison group definition. Additional results support the psychosocial hypothesis that increased job satisfaction is strongly correlated with improvements in mental health. Also, we found evidence of substitution effects between work hours and leisure. Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of the NLW cannot be understood in isolation from the way the entire suite of policy instruments operates on earnings and liveable income for affected low wage workers.

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Treatment design, health outcomes, and demographic categories in the literature on minimum wages and health

Cited by 12 publications

References 53 publications

History of Low Hourly Wage and All-Cause Mortality Among Middle-aged Workers

History of Low Hourly Wage and All-Cause Mortality Among Middle-aged Workers

Estimating Effects of Wages on Smoking Prevalence Using Labor Unions as Instrumental Variables

Conflicting economic policies and mental health: Evidence from the UK national living wage and benefits freeze

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