Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This report estimates the impact that raising the federal minimum wage would have on America’s food insecurity problem. Using the significant variation between state and federal minimum wages), this report seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What is the policy context and why should we care about the link between an increase in the minimum wage and food security?
2. How does an increase in the minimum wage improve food security?
3. What is the impact of a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage on food security?
4. What would be the impact of an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.00 per hour?

Preliminary key findings are:

1. An increase in the minimum wage significantly improves food security, with larger increases for nonwhite, high school graduate, and single-parent households.

• The improvement in food security is more the result of lifting up households that face intermittent but significant food insecurity (known as low food security), than of raising those up who face consistent and severe deprivation (known as very low food security).
• An increase in the minimum wage enables households to worry less about meeting their food needs, to maintain a supply of food, to reduce their reliance on low-cost food, and to afford more-balanced meals.
• Because adults are more likely to make sacrifices to their food intake and dietary choices in order to provide for their children, raising the minimum wage has a greater impact on food insecurity among adults than among their children.