Wolf D 1

A study assessing how preemption affects birth outcomes – a key indicator of population health – found that state preemption of local minimum wage laws accounted for as much as 3.5% of infant deaths, resulting in more than 600 infant deaths in 2018 alone. The same study also found that the largest metro counties could reduce the infant mortality rate by 1.5 to 1.8% by increasing the minimum wage by one dollar. Read more in Wolf D, Monnat S, Montez JK. Profits protected, lives lost: The preemption tradeoff. 2020 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting. October 2020.