The Effect of State Minimum Wage Laws on Medicaid Expansion Outcomes (December 2016)

Principal Investigator: Christine Eibner, PhD, RAND Corporation

The goal of this study is to inform state-level policy discussions around whether minimum wage changes could have unintended consequences for workers’ health insurance access and to enable state policymakers to begin thinking about potential solutions. Over the past several years, there has been significant policy action regarding state minimum wage laws—with the federal minimum wage increasing by 40 percent between 2007 and 2010, and 15 states increasing their minimum wages above the federal requirement between 2010 and 2015. Higher minimum wages may affect employer-sponsored insurance enrollment if employers respond to wage increases by reducing benefit generosity, increasing employee contributions, or eliminating insurance entirely. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the researchers will estimate whether state minimum wage changes that occurred since 2007 were associated with reduced employer-sponsored insurance enrollment, and whether this effect was modified by Medicaid expansion. 

Publications

The Effect of the 2014 Medicaid Expansion on Insurance Coverage for Newly Eligible Childless Adults
(2016, Report)

Do Minimum Wage Changes Affect Employer-Sponsored Insurance Coverage?
(June 2018, Presentation)