US state minimum wages and rates of maltreatment-related death among children

Background: The number of U.S. deaths due to child maltreatment (abuse and neglect) has been increasing over several years. Policy-level interventions that increase household income may be effective interventions for lowering child maltreatment death rates.

Objective: To estimate the effect of state-level minimum wages on child maltreatment-related mortality and assess heterogeneity by race and ethnicity.

Participants and setting: 24,025 child maltreatment-related deaths in U.S. children under 5 years old between 2000 and 2019 were identified via death certificates using International Classification of Diseases codes that (1) identified abuse explicitly and (2) identified injuries predictive of maltreatment ("proxy codes"). State-year maltreatment-related deaths were divided by under-5 population estimates to obtain death rates.

Methods: Incidence rate differences (IRD) of the effect of a $1 increase in effective minimum wage on child maltreatment-related death rates, were estimated via a linear regression with state and year fixed effects, robust standard errors, population weights, and appropriate confounder adjustment. Heterogeneity in effect by race and ethnicity was examined using stratified models.

Results: Fully adjusted estimates using combined explicit and proxy codes were close to the null [IRD: -0.05 deaths per 100,000 children overall, 95%CI: (-0.25, 0.16)], with slight, if imprecise, protective estimates among non-Hispanic Black children [IRD: -0.60 deaths per 100,000 children, 95%CI: (-1.28, 0.08)].

Conclusions: This study did not find compelling evidence of a link between minimum wages and child maltreatment-related mortality. Future research should explore other potential policy levers as potential child maltreatment interventions.