By Valerie Bauman Social Affairs Reporter For Dailymail.com
Published: 21:25 BST, 1 May 2019 | Updated: 21:25 BST, 1 May 2019
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America could reduce suicide rates by raising the minimum wage and through other economic policies to help the poor, according to a new study.
The finding is based on the premise that the 33 percent increase in the national suicide rate from 1999-2017 is at least in part a result of limited economic prospects among less-educated people and working-class Americans, according to the paper published this week in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Researchers at the University of California Berkeley analyzed 1999-2015 death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, finding that when states increased the minimum wage, or raised a tax credit for working families, the suicide rate went down.
They projected that increasing minimum wage and the earned-income tax credit (which was established to increase take-home pay among low-income workers) by 10 percent could prevent as many as
