本文将2010-2020年六轮中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据与各区县最低工资标准合并，研究了最低工资政策对中国劳动者心理健康状况的影响。文章根据个人工资来区分受政策影响较深的低收入工人和基本不受影响的高收入工人，着重考察了最低工资标准上涨对低收入工人心理健康的提升作用。

本文得到以下结论：首先，最低工资标准提高可以显著降低低收入工人的抑郁概率。当地最低工资标准每提高100元/月，低收入工人抑郁概率较平均水平下降10.7%，而高收入者的心理状况则没有显著变化。其次，最低工资的心理健康效应在不同特征人群中有所差异。相较于身体素质较好的低收入工人，最低工资对身体素质较差的劳动者的心理健康提升作用更大。最后，本文详细讨论了最低工资影响心理健康的机制。结果显示，最低工资标准上涨显著提高了低收入者的工资水平，使其家庭食品消费和文化娱乐消费增加，进而降低了劳动者的抑郁概率。此外研究表明，最低工资标准上涨并不会增加劳动者的工作时长或降低其被纳入社会保障体系的概率。本文还考虑了最低工资标准制定的内生性，使用工具变量的结果表明，本文估计的最低工资对心理健康的政策效果是稳健的。

研究证实，2010-2020年，我国最低工资政策可以提高低收入工人的工资及消费水平，显著改善劳动者精神健康。本文丰富了考察最低工资健康效应的文献，为探讨最低工资制度更广泛的政策效果提供了实证证据。

This study examines the impact of minimum wages on individual mental health in China by linking household panel surveys (CFPS) with county level minimum wages during the period of 2010-2020. The identification strategy puts emphasis on distinguishing workers who are affected by the policy accurately based on individual wage. This paper focuses on the effect of minimum wages on low-income workers’ mental health.

The study draws the following conclusions: firstly, higher minimum wage standards can significantly reduce the probability of depression among low-income workers. In particular, every 100 yuan increase of local monthly minimum wage leads to a 10.7 percent decline of treated workers’ depression compared with the average level, while there is no significant effect on high-income workers. Secondly, the results indicate that mental health effects of minimum wage vary among different demographic groups. Treated workers who have worse physical fitness would be affected by this policy more. Finally, this paper further digs into the mechanisms by which minimum wages impact mental health. The results show that higher minimum wages improve the salary earned by low-income workers, increase their consumption of food and culture entertainment, and then alleviate depressive symptoms. This paper also presents that the increase of minimum wages does not level up working hours or decline the access of social security. The endogeneity of minimum wages is also considered. Two-stage least squares regression results using instrumental variables show that the estimated policy effect of minimum wages on mental health is still valid.

This paper fully confirms that from 2010 to 2020, minimum wage policy in China can increase low-wage workers’ income and consumption, and significantly reduce the probability of depression. In sum, this paper enriches the literature studying the health effects of minimum wage policy and provides empirical evidence for exploring the broader policy effects of minimum wage.