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 ...
Raising the minimum wage has had no effect on employment rate. Just do a little research yourself.
Can't agree with that - arsenic is not an antidote for cyanide.
I have: 95% of economic studies on the subject show that raising the "minimum wage" DOES raise unemployment. The 5% that don't find an effect are the only ones the MSM talks about.
Well you can’t keep flooding the USA with immigrants and keep the min wage as it is now. That is the road to socialism.
Apparently, we don't have to go that high.
Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads.
If you wanted to eliminate 100% of all suicides (by their logic) you would only have to increase the minimum wage by $17 (100%/6% = 16.6666)
False.
"Nearly two-thirds of the studies reviewed estimated that the minimum wage had negative (although not always statistically significant) effects on employment. Only eight found positive employment effects. Of the 33 studies judged the most credible, 28, or 85%, pointed to negative employment effects. These included research on Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Portugal, the UK, and the US. In particular, the studies focusing on the least-skilled workers find stronger evidence of disemployment effects, with effects near or larger than the consensus range in the US data." - https://wol.iza.org/articles/employment-effects-of-minimum-wages/long
Can't agree with that - arsenic is not an antidote for cyanide.
Well you can’t keep flooding the USA with immigrants and keep the min wage as it is now. That is the road to socialism.
Agree 1000% - what we need is to consume neither arsenic nor cyanide.
No, that’s actually a completely separate issue, though equally egregious.
In the case of “legal” migration it serves to drive down the salaried employees in high incomed, skilled or technical fields. Same principles at work though. Replace Americans with foreigners. And destroy the lives of anyone who dares to complain.
This is really dumb. Raisng the minimum wage will simply cause many more poorly adaptive people to be unemployed, not re-employed or redeployed. If parity is to be realized, the government should get out of the socialistic wage-control business and let people earn what they can, while they can, on the basis of their abilities, and according to the need. The suicidal impulse will go away when someone who is able to work can find some kind of work, if it’s only by the day.
So who does the work after all these people lose their jobs?
Less drug use would help more.
Some of it goes undone, the rest gets added to the workload of the remaining employees.
As studies go, this is much stupider than most. Correlation is not causation.
But let’s take a look at what they are saying: “...study found that a higher minimum wage made the biggest difference in periods of high unemployment. “ If they’re unemployed, then how the hell can a higher minimum wage make a difference?
Also, higher minimum mandated hourly rates increase unemployment.
The government does not have the right to impose a minimum or maximum hourly rate of pay.
Let’s play their game for a second or two: How high do you have to raise it to eliminate suicides entirely? hmmm? $200 per hour? $1,000?
No, because when they raise taxes there are less jobs so more idiots kill themselves.
However doing your homework in school instead of smoking dope is directly related to not being able to get a job and committing suicide.
Without all the political shipping and handing charges.
No.
Next stupid question.
Now you’ve given them an idea for another angle...”Two thousand abortions a week could be avoided by an increase in the minimum wage....”
WHAT ELEVATED PERIOD OF UNEMPLOYMENT???
Trump has more people working in the USA today than for over half a century.
The first sentence is a contradiction in terms. It goes downhill from there.
Keep raising the minimum wage & FEWER people will have jobs. You cannot charge $10 +++ for a loaf of bread to keep paying $15 an hour to a bakery clerk.
No. And I add that if that were the case then actors would not be killing themselves at a huge percentage compared to other population groups.
However, when they do raise the minimum wage as they did in many places. The doomsday predictions are not occurring either....so both sides are ridiculous as always.
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