Impact of minimum wage increases on homicide mortality in the US

Introduction: Even though state minimum wage (MW) is a policy lever that affects income and poverty and can prevent of violence, no prior study has comprehensively evaluated its impact in the United States (US). In this study, we estimated the impact of at least a $1 USD increase in state MW above the federal MW on overall, firearm, and non-firearm homicide mortality and examined its impact on racialized inequities. Methods: We conducted a quasi-experimental study using controlled interrupted time series (CITS) and synthetic controlled interrupted time series (SCITS) approaches to examine immediate and sustained impact of state MW increases. We used state-month level homicide victimization mortality data from 2010-2019. Homicide victimization death was identified using International Classification of Disease codes, 10th revision. State MW data was obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Results: Demographic and social variables from intervention, never-exposed, and always-exposed states were similar to each other and representative of the total US population from all 50 states. The CITS results show that after MW increases in the intervention states, these states experienced a sustained decline of -0.22 (-0.37, -0.07) homicide victimizations/ 100,000 person-years/ year relative to the never-exposed states and -0.39 (-0.59, -0.18) relative to always-exposed states. This resulted in 5,657 fewer homicide victimization deaths in the intervention states over four years of post-MW increase period compared to the never-exposed states. SCITS results were similar to the CITS results, and the majority of sustained declines were observed in firearm-related deaths and among Black population. Conclusion: MW increase was associated with a reduction in homicide victimization rates, which were robust in multiple sensitivity analyses, more pronounced for firearm-related homicide deaths, and reduced homicide victimization inequities for Black Americans.