In November, the New York City-based organization Hunger Free America released a report pointing to the correlation between a low minimum wage and a hunger. The report, entitled Working America's Still Hungry, put New Mexico at the top of states with highest food insecurity among working adults. New Mexico's rate of 15.3% (where the minimum wage is $7.50) was almost one and half percentage points above the the two states with the next highest rate, Louisiana and Mississippi (both of which were at 14% and had a minimum wage of $7.25). In contrast, food insecurity was recorded at 6.7% in the District of Columbia (which has a minimum wage of $11.50) and 6.1% in Massachusetts (where workers earn a minimum of $11.00 per hour).
According to the report, which which is based on an analysis of federal data, 15 million adults in our country lived in food insecure households with at least one person employed in the years 2014 to 2016, Of this total, almost 131,000 food insecure employed adults live in New Mexico, which has a minimum wage of $7.50.
"This shameful data is the latest evidence that the American dream is seriously at risk unless we change our current economic and political policies nationwide," Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg said in a press statement shortly after the release of the report in mid-November. "Low wages are still the top cause of U.S. hunger and malnutrition."
The minimum wage was one of the issues considered in the New Mexico State Legislature during the 2017 session. The Senate approved an initiative to raise the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour, while the House approved a measure to raise the rate to $9.25 an hour. Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed the two measures, according to the online new site New Mexico Political Report.
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Albuquerque Journal Coverage
The Hunger Free America report caught the attention of The Albuquerque Journal, which wrote an article on Dec. 18 quoting CEO Berg and a couple of business associations in the state. As Berg suggested, "The good news is this data proves that states that hiked their own minimum wages were less likely to have workers struggling against hunger."
Carol Wright, chief executive officer with the New Mexico Restaurant Association, pointed out that the minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 per hour, and the state has "fewer people living in poverty than there are in New Mexico.” Wright, of course, misinterpreted the numbers, as Texas has1.4 million working adults who suffer from food insecurity, or about 11% of employed adults (a number that is still high).
Similarly, Jason Espinoza, president and CEO of the New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry, suggested that increasing the minimum wage is not the answer to New Mexico's economic woes, but rather the promotion of initiatives to create jobs. While I don't disagree with the second part of his statement, the first part is just as important. It's not a question of "apples or oranges," but "apples and oranges."
While I commend Journal reporter Rick Nathanson for his effort to present both sides, quoting Berg on one side and Wright and Espinoza on the other side, he failed to get the perspective of organizations in New Mexico that directly track the challenges of the working poor in our state. Surely, someone from The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, New Mexico Voices for Children, the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico or the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops would have wanted to make a statement on this issue.
The Interfaith Hunger Coalition advocates raising the minimum wage as one of the important elements to help address the problem of our high level of food insecurity in the state. The needs of the working poor should be considered alongside programs targeted at children, seniors and rural communities. At the End Hunger Summit in Albuquerque in October, we proposed the creation of some sort of committee or caucus in the State Legislature to take a broad view at hunger in our state in propose long-term and lasting solutions.
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