Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Department of EpidemiologyLow and minimum wage work, prevalent in the United States, is a key driver of both income inequality and income-driven health disparities.Cities and states have increasingly moved to adopt higher minimum wages with the goal of closing the income gap and improving the economic well-being of their residents.Over the last decade, academics and policymakers alike have been interested in the influence of higher wage policies on health and behavior.To date the emerging evidence has been mixed and varies depending on the populations or outcomes under study.Few studies have evaluated the longitudinal relation between higher minimum wages and health or changes in behavior.Moreover, no prior study has explored whether this relation is modified by individual economic circumstances.We used the 1999 to 2017 biannual waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the association between minimum wage and health (obesity, hypertension, fair or poor self-reported health, and moderate psychological distress) and behavior (smoking, drinking, and physical activity) in working-age adults, both employed and unemployed.We used a difference-in-difference-in-differences model using modified Poisson regression to evaluate the association between a $1 increase in minimum wage (current and 2-year lagged) among adults with a high school education or less in the full sample and across racial/ethnic and gender strata.We also used a difference-in-differences regression restricted to those with a high school education or less to determine whether employment instability, as measured by prior-year weeks of unemployment and years of tenure the current employer, modified the influence of minimum wage on obesity and moderate psychological distress.These evaluations of potential effect Dedication Project Introduction Chapter 1: The association between state minimum wages and health among working-age adults, Panel Study of Income Dynamics 1999 to 2017
Author: James Buszkiewicz
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3132631708