Raising the minimum wage could prevent suicides for low-income Americans, particularly among women, according to a new working paper from well-respected economists and public health specialists at the University of California at Berkeley.

The researchers found that a 10% rise in the minimum wage led to a 3.6% drop in non-drug related suicides for adults without college degrees. For women, who make up the majority of minimum wage workers, a 10% increase led to a 4.6% reduction.

The researchers concluded that raising the minimum wage plus expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit ― a cash benefit for low-wage families―could prevent more than 1,200 suicides a year.

Typically, discussion of the minimum wage is defined narrowly as an economic issue. The study demonstrates the far higher life-or-death stakes faced by low-income workers.

“It’s not just about jobs and wages; it’s about mental health,” said Anna Godøy, a labor economist at The University of California, Berkeley who co-authored the study. Higher minimum wages are “likely to save lives.”

Knowing that financial stress is a predictor of suicide, Godøy said she expected to find some kind of connection in their research. “Still I was certainly surprised at how clear the drop was,” she said, adding that as soon as a state raised wages there was a clear change in the data.

The study’s authors also looked at whether raising the Earned Income Tax Credit would have an effect on suicide rates. It did. A 10% increase in the credit led to a 5.5% drop in suicides for that same group.

The study, published in a working paper on the National Bureau of Economic Research’s website on Monday, adds to a growing body of research looking at the disturbing drop in life expectancy in the United States over the past three years ― mainly due to a rise in suicides and opioid-related overdoses, dubbed “deaths of despair.” In the early 20th Century because of World War I and the influenza pandemic, which led to about 675,000 deaths in the United States alone.