State of Sleep: An Investigation Into the Effects of State Minimum Wage on the Sleep of Employed Adults in the United States

Abstract

State minimum wage is a topic that often finds itself amidst controversy among scholarly research. Rooted in economic models and principles, literature primarily hones in on its goal of helping lower-income/lower-skilled individuals as well as the effects of minimum wages on employment. However, more recent literature in the twenty-first century shows that non-labor market outcomes such as health-related outcomes can also be affected by changes in state minimum wage. One outcome that has yet to be explicitly studied is sleep, which can have major long-lasting impacts on health and longevity. This leads one to wonder what is the effect of state minimum wage on the average hours of sleep obtained by workers? This paper looks at the general relationship between income and sleep, factors that can affect sleep, and contributes to the conversation with empirical evidence for the causal impact of state minimum wage increases on sleep. Through state and year fixed effects regression models using data from the CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey and a compilation of annual state minimum wage data this paper investigates the effect of state minimum wage changes in the time period of 2013-2021 on the sleep of employed adults in the United States of America. It is found that a one dollar increase in real state minimum wage is associated with 0.00888 more hours of sleep for an individual in the data sample. There was no significant difference found in the effect of state minimum wage on sleep when looking at a smaller data sample with only lower-skilled workers. Ultimately, these results alone are not sufficient for me to argue that a federal minimum wage raise should necessarily be instituted. However, it is one outcome that could potentially be used in conjunction with additional research and other non-labor market outcomes that could argue in favor of raising the minimum wage.