How the minimum wage affects the health insurance coverage, safety net program participation, and health of low-wage workers and their families: a review of recent literature

How the minimum wage affects the health insurance coverage, safety net program participation, and health of low-wage workers and their families: a review of recent literature

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Author(s):
Blavin, Fredric, author
Gangopadhyaya, Anuj, author
Contributor(s):
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, issuing body.
Urban Institute, issuing body.
Publication:
Washington, DC : Urban Institute, July 2022
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Health Equity -- economics
Health Policy
Insurance, Health -- economics
Medically Uninsured -- statistics & numerical data
Poverty -- economics
Social Mobility
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
In President Biden’s first month in office, the administration proposed more than doubling the current federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour as part of a pandemic relief package. Ultimately, this provision was withdrawn from the final relief package, and the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25, the same rate in place since 2009.1 Though the federal minimum wage has not risen in more than a decade, many states and localities have raised their minimum wages. In 2010, 14 states had minimum wages that exceeded the federal rate, and by 2019, 23 states had minimum wages above the federal rate (figure 1). Currently, eight states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York) and Washington, DC, have implemented or enacted legislation that would phase in a state minimum wage of $15.2. In this brief, we describe the characteristics of minimum-wage workers, discuss the potential pathways through which the minimum wage may affect the health of workers and their families, and review recent empirical studies in this area. Given the competing influences of higher earnings and, possibly, the loss of work hours or employment, economic theory does not provide a clear answer on the overall effects of a minimum-wage increase on health, health behaviors, and eligibility for public programs and fringe benefits. Though a recent review of the effects of the minimum wage on direct measures of health provides a rigorous meta-analysis of this topic (Leigh, Leigh, and Du 2019), it was restricted to analyses published by mid-2018, and most of the reviewed papers investigated the effects of changes in minimum-wage laws that are incremental and much smaller than the changes currently underway in many states. We review additional papers published after 2018—and after the period of studies reviewed by Leigh, Leigh, and Du (2019)—that provide credible new evidence of the effects of state minimum-wage changes on adult mortality, adult health, and infant and child health. In contrast to Leigh, Leigh, and Du (2019), we also summarize the literature on the effect of minimum-wage increases on eligibility for means-tested public programs and the receipt of fringe benefits from employers.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
Extent:
1 online resource (1 PDF file (16 pages))
Illustrations:
Illustrations
NLM Unique ID:
9918471183006676 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918471183006676