Scientists from Columbia University found that sustained low wages are associated with much faster memory decline.
The research is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and was conducted by Katrina Kezios et al.
While low-wage jobs have been linked to depressive symptoms, obesity, and hypertension, which are risk factors for cognitive aging, until now no prior studies had examined the link between low wages during working years and later-life cognitive functioning.
In the study, the team analyzed data from 2,879 people born between 1936 and 1941. Their records were from the national Health and Retirement Study (HRS).
Low-wage was defined as hourly wage lower than two-thirds of the federal median wage for the corresponding year.
The researchers found that, compared with workers never earning low wages, sustained low-wage earners experienced much faster memory decline in older age.
They experienced approximately one excess year of cognitive aging per a 10-year period; in other words, the level of cognitive aging experienced over a 10-year period by sustained low-wage earners would be what those who never earned low wages experienced in 11 years.
The research provides new evidence that sustained exposure to low wages during peak earning years is associated with accelerated memory decline later in life.
This association was observed in our primary sample as well as in a validation cohort.
In the U.S., the federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 per hour since 2009.
While economic growth has increased since then, wage and salary growth for employees—particularly those in low-wage jobs—have slowed over time, and the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation.
The findings suggest that social policies that enhance the financial well-being of low-wage workers may be especially beneficial for cognitive health.
Future work should rigorously examine the number of dementia cases and excess years of cognitive aging that could be prevented under different hypothetical scenarios that would increase the minimum hourly wage.
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