Raise the minimum wage

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.[1] Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has lost more than a quarter of its value in inflation-adjusted terms. Nearly two-thirds of workers at or just above the federal minimum are women. Tipped workers, for whom the federal minimum is only $2.13 an hour (unchanged since 1991), are also disproportionately women.[2]

In 2019, the U.S. House passed the Raise the Wage Act[3], which would have raised the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025, resulting in more than 33 million Americans receiving a raise. Roughly one-third of Black and Latina working women would have received a raise, as would a quarter of white working women. More than 15 million children live in a household that would have received a raise.[4]

Research has tied increases to the minimum wage to decreases in mental health and substance use disorders – and to reductions in suicide. One study found that a $1 increase in the hourly minimum wage was associated with between a 3.4 and 5.9 percent decrease in the suicide rate among adults aged 18-64 with a high school education or less.[5] Another study in the United Kingdom found that an increase in the national minimum wage reduced anxiety and depression among low-income people at a level similar to the effect of antidepressants.[6] Yet another study concluded that “the minimum wage could be an important policy tool that improves the mental health among low-wage workers with no college education.”[7] By improving the economic security of millions of low-wage workers, Congress can take an important step forward in improving mental health.