I see income inequality as a key issue here. I recently read the "Triumph of injustice" and came away with a changed view in our tax system. After reading the book, I now believe that any household with a net worth over $100 million should be subject to both an income and capital gains tax of 99%. In short folks with income come and or net worth at levels that surpass their ability to buy a life of finical security for several generations only increase income inequality.
High historically high levels of income inequality have torn countries apart.
I was reading the other day that typically mass shootings happen during a recession, and right now is a confusing time because the economy is supposedly doing fantastic, yet we keep having mass shootings.
Could this have to do with the mounting inequality? It seems the standard indicators for the health of the economy are breaking because wealth just keeps pooling near the top. So what this study could be saying is, "make changes so that more people get the benefits of the booming economy."
Alternatively stop exporting jobs and outsourcing joining a race to the bottom.
Stop buying cheap, disposable stuff and buy durable things affording locals a living wage. Minimum wages are only slightly better. In my mind minimum wages are wages to minimally support a teenager or similar who has no other responsibilities. People with responsibilities need actually decent jobs.
Hollowing our decent paying blue collar jobs will drive some people to despair.
As the old saying goes: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski. And you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski.
New Zealand has a high minimum wage https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW
New Zealand also has a terrible youth suicide rate. http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/health/suicide.html "New Zealand’s youth (15–24 years) suicide rate was the highest among the 34 OECD countries, ahead of Finland for males and Korea for females."
Aren't there studies that show the suicide rate among married men is drastically lower than unmarried men? I really don't think it has anything to do with income (or at least to a significant degree) than it does with loneliness. Men's self worth is tied to his friends and wealth. It's hard to share your wealth if everybody else makes the same as you. So making more poor people "less poor" still wouldn't solve the problem among men not acquiring prestige or status that attracts people to them. It makes it incredibly easy to feel like a loser and ponder "whats the point?"
Something I think gets lost in discussions about mental health is that sometimes people’s lives are just really really shitty.
It doesn’t take a genetic predisposition to get to a dark place when your life is falling apart.
What would increased minimum wage due to small business (<$50m/yr in revenue)? Wouldn't it force them to cut shifts/hours/consolidate positions?
money won't make you happy, but being poor will make you miserable, especially in the US
What about people who lose their jobs or don't get hired in the first place?
I'd also like to see the inclusion of compulsory personal finance and budgeting education in our education system, both during high school and college/university years. A lot of the stress that encompassed my life back when I was working in a retail environment came from worrying over bills which ballooned because of my own lack of budgeting. It's an important skill that everyone should be exposed to early on.
> Kaufman is planning future work to see whether depression, a risk factor for suicide, also decreases with wage hikes
It doesn't. A good working environment does. ÂŁ1/hr more is nothing if you're on minimum wage working for Amazon Fulfillment or Facebook Moderation, being treated like a slave.
Source: totally unscientific experience with factory work and workers.
Eh, I might kill myself in a year or two - more money would not change anything. The recent realization that I will never find a romantic partner despite being (relatively) rich, tall, good looking, sociable and sane has been crushing. At least if I had money problems I'd have something else to blame than myself.
Isn't it obvious that most of America's problems stem from life being shitty for very many people?
Not too surprising. Suicide is a death of despair, which are closely linked to job loss, income loss, love loss, family loss, pain, etc. Easing any of those scenarios should help reduce suicide.
Obligatory Mitchell and Webb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg
Minimum wage: if you can't produce $X/hr in value, you're prohibited from producing at all.
I suspect raising that cutoff would increase suicides.
wow, how about..
1) NO taxes till $40k-50k for a family 2) Free healthcare 3) Not so crazy tution fees
all these are doable.. just like raising minimum wage..
Correlation isn't causation.
Its actively harmful to pretend it is because it diverts from real research and actual solutions and
Does the effect last, or is it a short-term windfall effect?
The minimum wage should be 0 - sincerely any good economist
infinite minimum wage = zero suicide
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm
In the US, 434,000 make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Another 1.3 million make wages below the federal minimum.
The article mentions raising the minimum wage by 10%, or 73 cents an hour, which would save 1230 lives per year (plus a 10% increase in federal EITC as well). Assuming a 2000 hr work year, this increase in minimum wage would cost $633.64 million nationally for those making exactly minimum wage, and some larger value at least 3x that, if we also bring those 1.3 million making below minimum wage up to minimum wage + 10%. (It's unclear who is making below minimum wage, it might be family farmworkers? $2.13/hr service employees who aren't getting tips? Students exempt from the minimum wage? All of the above?) In any case the cost per life saved using this method at a minimum comes to $1,745,921, but probably around twice that. That might be a good value. Or it might be that there are other methods of saving those lives that would be more effective at lower cost, allowing even more lives to be saved.
Doesn't seem plausible, _especially_ when unemployment is high.
Retail is the land of the minimum wage jobs, and margins are fairly thin there as it is. Raising the minimum wage simply means some employees become former employees. If the unemployment is at historic lows as it is today, there's a good chance those former employees will be able to find another job, so I see how the conclusion of the paper could be plausible, although loss of a job is still a very stressful event regardless.
When the unemployment rate is high (as it was in the studied date range), however, the effective wage becomes whatever unemployment pays, which isn't very much, and then it goes away entirely at some point. I don't see how this would reduce suicide.
Seems to me like another study crafted to produce the outcome the author wanted. The hypothesis isn't really testable anyway.
I always thought about more of a hybrid model for the US. Something like a market socialism a la Singapore.
I would try to commoditize housing,healthcare and food. It would be essential to make sure that these fundamental needs of people working for minimum wage are take care of.
This is dumb.
We know sucides and death goes down the more money you get up to at least $120,000.
They don't seem to have quantified anything?
What's the cost per life saved here?
Well America has a difficult problem to solve. And that is its workforce is insanely expensive. Or lets say the rest of the world is insanely poor compared to the americans.
We often joked here in Eastern Europe that we would be better off leaving our current IT jobs and just go to the US to work at McDonalds.
Really doubt this. Instead I would look into the connection between anti depressants/anti psychotics and suicide. There's research of strong connections, but immunity is claimed by the drug companies, "because they were already depressed/mentally unhealthy when put on the drugs". Mental health professionals and managers at large drug companies need to start going to jail for over-prescribing psychiatric drugs.
The next big culprit is other drug addiction, like fentanyl and heroin. Stemming the flow of cheap fentanyl dumped into the United States by China and throwing doctors in jail who over prescribe these drugs would do wonders for people.
"Reeeeee i want gibs or I'm gonna kill my self!" - Some sperg NEET, probably
When idiots try to use simple math to try to model complex phenomena, I can only assume they have idiotic simplistic goals in mind.
Why do we need to prevent suicide? Maybe we need to remove the stigma around it so that people who got dealt a shit hand, aren't further burdened by getting shamed by everyone around them for wanting to end it.
We have too many people, it'd be an improvement for those who want to live and those who don't, if those who do not, decided to spend a few months doing whatever they wanted that isn't harming anyone else, and proceeding to peacefully move on with it.
It'd force shit parents, shit communities and shit people in general, to re-examine their way of life, if those around them would rather cease to exist, than co-exist with them. It'd be a massive move in the direction of honesty, dignity and respect for one another - something humans rarely engage in.
Raising minimum wage will push automation even further, making currently productive people switch to be welfare-dependent. Financed by taxes on the tech industry. This is a recipe for dystopia.
Does anyone have access to the paper? Raising the minimum wage means less jobs will be available, as employers cut costs and perform layoffs. My assumption is the paper neglects to factors this into their analysis, but if they do, I'd love to read it.
edit: paper shared below!
I’m all for fair pay, even if it means things (products or services) become more expensive. But therein is the problem: If the minimum wage is ten dollars an hour and you’re making twelve dollars an hour, that’s very different from minimum wage being twelve dollars and you’re making twelve dollars. Raising the minimum doesn’t just give minimum wage earners more money, it simultaneously devalues the money they receive. Does it devalue it at a rate proportionate to how much more they now make (on paper)? I don’t know. We almost certainly have to increase it (x+n)% to realize a benefit that on paper would come from an x% increase alone.
Globalization and protectionism also play a role here, and are a critical factor in the answer (think global minimum wage vs local minimum wage).
I wonder what would happen to the suicide rate with medicare for all, and creating a max-wage that is (avg of contractors + employees * 150), or something similar, w/ additional 'bonus' multipliers for increasing # of U.S. hired.
UBI would also probably help. As a freelancer I've had some really slim months and depression hits hard when money is tight.
There's a very direct correlation between income security, insecurity, stress, depression, and suicidal thoughts.