Thread by @igorvolsky

1/ As lawmakers in Congress work to raise the minimum wage to $15 to ensure that Americans earn a living wage, we must remember that paying people more could also *reduce crime and help build safer communities for us all*

2/ We've long known that investing in education, job opportunities, housing etc... has the effect of reducing violence -- particularly everyday gun violence.

3/ In 2016, Obama's Council Of Economic Advisers studied this question and found that “Higher wages for low-skilled workers reduce both property and violent crime, as well as crime among adolescents." obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/…

4/ “The impact of wages on crime is substantial … a 10 percent increase in wages for non-college educated men results in approximately a 10 to 20 percent reduction in crime rates.”

5/ The Council found that raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 “would result in a 3 to 5 percent crime decrease (250,000 to 510,000 crimes) and a societal benefit of $8 to $17 billion dollars.”

6/ Research has found the decline in unemployment explained about 30% of the fall in crime rates from 1992 to 1997 and that unemployment and crimes rates fall together, and rising wages and crime rates move apart: epi.org/publication/bo…

7/ The National Bureau of Economic research found "there is a strong relationship between wage levels and criminal behavior, which explains why, over the past 20 years, crime rates for young men have increased while their wages have decreased" nber.org/digest/nov97/h…

8/ Too often politicos hold issues in silos:

Minimum wage ➡️ economic growth

Tighter gun laws ➡️ violence reduction

BUT we can broaden conversations to better reflect how things operate in the real world; let's not ignore the link between crime and labor market opportunity

9/ I also think our leaders have a responsibility to draw out how some of these issues are interconnected.

Doing so, will help educate the public about root causes & also work to depoliticize and reframe how we think about certain policy solutions...