“The minimum wage hasn’t been increased, but the cost of food, the cost of health care, the cost of child care, rent, the cost of everything else, has increased,” said study co-author Jenifer MacGillvary. “When their incomes don’t go up but their expenses do, they have to turn to the safety net programs to fill in that gap.”
Kavitha Iyengar, president of United Auto Workers, or UAW, Local 2865, the union representing student workers in the UC system, said raising the federal minimum wage is “a moral and financial necessity.”
“Any person working full time should not live in poverty,” Iyengar said in an email. “Working people deserve a fair wage.”