Suicide reductions tied to increases in income, study finds

New research into the nation’s 35% increase in suicides since 2000 has found that policies that increase income show promise for reducing suicide rates (Source: “Researchers say there’s a simple way to reduce suicides: Increase the minimum wage,” Washington Post, April 30, 2019).

Researchers have found that states raising the earned-income tax credit (EITC) and the minimum wage by 10%  each could prevent about 1,230 suicides annually, according to a working paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week.

Increasing the tax credit and raising the minimum wage help less-educated, low-wage workers who have been hit hardest by what are now known as “deaths of despair,” a phrase popularized in a pair of widely cited 2015 and 2017 papers that typically refers to rising death rates among middle-aged white non-Hispanic Americans.

Among adults without a college education, increasing the EITC by 10% appears to have decreased non-drug suicides by about 5.5%. Raising the minimum wage by 10% reduced suicides by 3.6%. Although raising the minimum wage led to an immediate decrease in suicides, raising the EITC had a delayed effect, resulting in fewer suicides the following year, once the tax change came into force.