# Understanding the effect of increases in the minimum wage on access to health care and health

> **NIH AHRQ F32** · HARVARD UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $86,733

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Research Project: Even with health insurance, many adults report cost-related barriers to care, possibly related
to rising premiums, cost-sharing requirements, and other health care-associated expenses such as
transportation. In the context of widening differences in health by social class alongside rising income equality,
the goal of this research is to examine how changes in a policy intended to change the distribution of income –
the minimum wage – affects access to health care, food insecurity, and mental health among people at the
lower end of the income distribution. While the federal minimum wage remained unchanged since 2009, thirty
states have increased their minimum wage since then. There is a robust economic and social literature looking
at how the minimum wage affects earnings and employment; these studies generally show null to very modest
effects on employment and positive effects on earnings, including a reduction in the racial earnings gap. Yet
the impact of the minimum wage on access to health care and health has not been studied in as much detail.
This proposal will examine three specific outcomes that could be affected most directly by increases in the
minimum wage: barriers to health care, food insecurity, and psychological distress. Health care could mitigate
some of the downstream health consequences of low income, but access to health care itself varies by
income: in 2017, 29% of non-elderly adults in the lowest income group were unable to see a physician
because of cost, versus 9% in the highest income group. Even for those able to access health care, the ability
to follow a treatment plan and manage chronic illness can be hindered by food insecurity and poor mental
health, which are also concentrated among low-income households. The proposed study will use national
health survey data and quasi-experimental methods to accomplish two key aims. First, I will assess the effect
of minimum wage laws on access to health care, food insecurity, and mental health among adults most likely to
work in low-wage occupations. Second, I will examine the differential impact of minimum wage laws on health
and access to health care by race, ethnicity, chronic disease status, and geography. Broadly, I seek to
discover what interventions to address rising income inequality can reveal about the link between income
inequality and access. The findings from this research will add novel evidence to current debates about
minimum wage and related policies that seek to raise earnings at the lower end of the income distribution.
Training Plan and Environment: My specific training goals include acquiring skills in advanced quantitative
methods for policy evaluation and causal inference; developing an interdisciplinary expertise in how income
and poverty can affect access to health care and health, including precise underlying mechanisms; and gaining
expertise in survey design and survey-based measurement of both access and healt...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10607277
- **Project number:** 1F32HS029259-01
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Sumit Agarwal
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $86,733
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-02 → 2024-09-01

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10607277

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10607277, Understanding the effect of increases in the minimum wage on access to health care and health (1F32HS029259-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10607277. Licensed CC0.

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