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Could raising the minimum wage prevent thousands of suicides?
CBS "News" ^ | January 10, 2020 | By Aimee Picchi

Posted on 01/10/2020 6:33:23 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

* Fewer suicides occur when minimum wages are higher during periods of elevated unemployment, according to a new study.

* Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads.

* Boosting the minimum wage by $1 could have saved 27,550 lives from 1990 to 2015, the study says.

Raising the federal minimum wage, which hasn't increased in more than a decade, might accomplish far more than simply offering U.S. workers a boost in pay. New research suggests that lifting the baseline wage could also stop thousands of Americans from killing themselves.

The study found that a higher minimum wage made the biggest difference in periods of high unemployment. Every $1 increase in the baseline wage could have saved more than 27,000 lives from 1990 to 2015, the authors estimated.

The research comes at a time when so-called "deaths of despair" are rising, with Princeton economists finding rising mortality rates for less educated white Americans. Their theory: Life for many lower-skilled workers has become a literal dead end, with chronic unemployment, poverty-level wages and a lack of opportunities leading to higher rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide.

"Life expectancy of the richest 20% of Americans has increased over the last three decades, while life expectancy of the middle 60% has changed little, and has decreased for the poorest 20%," wrote the Emory University authors, who specialize in epidemiology and behavioral health. "Minimum wage increases may be one intervention to reduce income-based disparities in life expectancy, including from suicide."

Economists have also examined whether a higher minimum wage could reduce deaths of despair.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020election; 2ndamendment; abortion; aimeepicchi; banglist; boycotts; canada; cbs; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; genderdysphoria; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; homosexualagenda; incometaxes; infanticide; mediawingofthednc; medicareforall; mexico; minimumwage; nafta; nra; obamacare; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; quack; sanctions; secondamendment; seebs; smearmachine; tariffs; taxcutsandjobsact; taxreform; tcja; trade; usmca
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To: Dutch Boy

I would say this...if all of the illegals in the country left (forced to leave), then the jobs situation would require employers to go and look for people....likely raising the hourly rate a day or two in the first year alone. We’ve made a mistake allowing this many illegals to stay in the country and artificially screw up the wage rate.


21 posted on 01/10/2020 6:44:36 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

IBTCDEC

(In Before The ‘Correlation Doesn’t Equal Correlation’ comments)


22 posted on 01/10/2020 6:44:56 AM PST by Quality_Not_Quantity (A law means nothing if it isnÂ’t followed.)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

Oh, what a great post!

I love when he “drags” himself into the sheriff’s office and closes the door.
BART: (to self) “Man, you are sooooo good!” “And THEY are so stupid!”


23 posted on 01/10/2020 6:45:16 AM PST by Migraine
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If money wasn’t taken from working people to pay for crap like this “study”, they’d take home more money than they would from a payraise.


24 posted on 01/10/2020 6:45:38 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"According to a new study, raising the minimum wage by $1 would cause 119,341 suicides because of all the people it would put out of work."

So there.

25 posted on 01/10/2020 6:46:09 AM PST by OKSooner (Free Beer Tomorrow)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Could reducing the lottery odds also reduce suicide rates?


26 posted on 01/10/2020 6:46:52 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Decade of decision for America)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

About raising the minimum wage to reduce climate change?
Makes just about as much sense.


27 posted on 01/10/2020 6:47:19 AM PST by caver
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

sending all demonrats to venezuela would eliminate a lot of aggravation and save money at the same time...


28 posted on 01/10/2020 6:47:35 AM PST by heavy metal (your reward will be in heaven not on your paycheck...)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Would higher wages prevent some suicides?
Yes, but so would free beer!


29 posted on 01/10/2020 6:49:15 AM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Underpaid and having to work more than one job versus unemployed and in a morbid funk. Which would be more likely to cause someone to off themselves?


30 posted on 01/10/2020 6:49:39 AM PST by katana
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Perhaps until inflation spreads throughout the economy like a virus


31 posted on 01/10/2020 6:51:48 AM PST by dsrtsage (Complexity is merely simplicity lacking imagination)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

:: Life for many lower-skilled workers has become a literal dead end, with chronic unemployment, poverty-level wages and a lack of opportunities leading to higher rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide. ::

Yet, they keep voting for the same Democrat policies. Is there causality between voting for Democrats and suicide rates?


32 posted on 01/10/2020 6:52:22 AM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (The Republican Party: Freeing Americans since 1865.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Could kill a lot of entry level———jobs.


33 posted on 01/10/2020 6:52:51 AM PST by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Quality_Not_Quantity

“IBTCDEC”

Nope. See post #18.


34 posted on 01/10/2020 6:53:35 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
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To: Migraine
Yes, and the terrified look on his face:



He could NOT have been faking that!
35 posted on 01/10/2020 6:53:51 AM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: mjp

“Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads.”

I expect one capable of graduating high school be able to at least manage a minimum wage job, whatever that minimum is.

The conclusion (being a correlation, not cause) fails to address those who _didn’t_ finish high school, unable to achieve even basic productivity beyond what a robot or kiosk can do. Reducing the options for those presumably leads to increased, even terminal, despair.


36 posted on 01/10/2020 6:54:53 AM PST by ctdonath2 (Democrats oppose democracy.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I made minimum wage when I was 16 and it didn’t make me contemplate suicide. I was above minimum wage by my 17th birthday and never made it again.

I didn’t go to college until I was 49. An adult making minimum wage is a loser of the worst kind. They should be Soylent Green.


37 posted on 01/10/2020 6:55:06 AM PST by Bryanw92
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

When people will be thrown out of work as a result?


38 posted on 01/10/2020 6:55:47 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

As a real statistician, I am disgusted at what the left has done to math and to science. They’re not worried because we only have 11.1 years left before their woke science says we’ll all be dead, but those of us who believe in facts should be concerned.


39 posted on 01/10/2020 6:56:03 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Raising the minimum wage would case more people to be unemployed. So, did anyone do a study to see how many suicides are caused by people becoming unemployed because they were let go from artificially raising the minimum wage?


40 posted on 01/10/2020 6:56:07 AM PST by adorno
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