ArticleSSM - population health2017
The impact of the UK National Minimum Wage on mental health.
Article in SSM - population health, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Preventing depression in high-income countries-A systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Minimum Wages, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Mental Health Around Pregnancy.Health economics · 2026Article
- Welfare policies, joint pain prevalence and educational gaps in 50 U.S. states from 2011 to 2021: A fixed effects analysis.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- The unintended effects of a large minimum wage increase on health: Evidence from South Korea.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- State Minimum Wage and Mental Health Among Children and Adolescents.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The introduction of a minimum wage in Germany and the effects on physical activity participation.International journal of health economics and management · 2024Article
- Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in the association between higher state minimum wages and health and mental well-being in US adults with low educational attainment.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Article
- Article
- The impact of increasing the United Kingdom national minimum wage on self-reported health.Health economics · 2022Article
- Modelling Maternal Depression: An Agent-Based Model to Examine the Complex Relationship between Relative Income and Depression.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Income trajectories and self-rated health status in the UK.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Association of State Minimum Wage Rates and Health in Working-Age Adults Using the National Health Interview Survey.American journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- Philippine Mental Health Act: Just an Act? A Call to Look Into the Bi-directionality of Mental Health and Economy.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Population-Based Approaches to Mental Health: History, Strategies, and Evidence.Annual review of public health · 2020Review
- State minimum wage laws and newly diagnosed cases of HIV among heterosexual black residents of US metropolitan areas.SSM - population health · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite an emerging literature, there is still sparse and mixed evidence on the wider societal benefits of Minimum Wage policies, including their effects on mental health. Furthermore, causal evidence on the relationship between earnings and mental health is limited. We focus on low-wage earners, who are at higher risk of psychological distress, and exploit the quasi-experiment provided by the introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) to identify the causal impact of wage increases on mental health. We employ difference-in-differences models and find that the introduction of the UK NMW had no effect on mental health. Our estimates do not appear to support earlier findings which indicate that minimum wages affect mental health of low-wage earners. A series of robustness checks accounting for measurement error, as well as treatment and control group composition, confirm our main results. Overall, our findings suggest that policies aimed at improving the mental health of low-wage earners should either consider the non-wage characteristics of employment or potentially larger wage increases.
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