If getting higher wages is good for you, then the change in the mental health of workers who received higher wages ought to be greater than the change in the two groups of comparison workers who did not. The researchers found that workers who got higher wages because of the minimum wage law also experienced an improvement in their mental health, both in absolute terms and relative to the comparison groups. Importantly, the effect of the wage increase was about as large as taking an anti-depressant medication.

There are reasons to worry about Reeves’s data. The most important concern is that it was not a true experiment, because workers could not be randomly selected to either get a wage increase or not. So it’s possible that the improvement in the mental health of workers who got a raise had some other cause. However, a recent randomized experiment produced similar results. In the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, uninsured Portland residents were able to enter a lottery, and the winners could apply for insurance through Medicaid. The primary benefits of insurance are financial: Getting Medicaid reduces both the out of pocket cost of health care and the risk of incurring unpayable medical bills. Not surprisingly, recipients who got Medicaid reported reduced financial strain. They also reported improved self-reported mental health and were less likely to be identified as depressed.

It’s always been harder for Americans to get mental health care than physical health care. In most communities there are not enough mental health care providers to meet the demands for services. Many psychiatric medications are expensive. Health insurance often provides inadequate coverage for mental health care. Some of these problems were addressed in the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and the Affordable Care Act, but significant problems remain.

We need to be realistic about the limits of what we can achieve if we only work on the mental health treatment system. Delivering anti-depressants and psychotherapy to the many people who need them is much harder than it looks. Training and hiring more mental health specialists won’t mean that all the people who need care will get it. Like every other specialized clinician, most mental health providers do not serve the urban or rural poor. Newly minted psychiatrists are far more likely to open practices in Manhattan than in East Baltimore, or in Toronto than in Thunder Bay. Moreover, low-income patients find it difficult to make therapy appointments, fill prescriptions, or consistently take medications. Increasing the resources for mental health care is essential, but it will only dent the problem.