Food insecurity among older adults in the U.S.: The role of mortgage borrowing

Abstract

Housing wealth is the main source of wealth for many older adults. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we assess the impact of new mortgage borrowing on food insecurity among homeowners aged 65 and older. We find a substantial short‐term effect, with each additional $10,000 borrowed, lowering food insecurity by 2.2 percentage points. In a simulation of the impact of relaxing the debt‐to‐income borrowing constraint, food insecurity is reduced by 2.1 percentage points for previous nonborrowers and by 1.6 percentage points for borrowers. Results support the importance of access to mortgage borrowing to reduce material hardship in older age.

The long‐run prevalence of food insufficiency among older Americans

“…A puzzle in the existing literature is why income, at a point in time, does not do more to explain why some seniors experience hardship while others do not. This is not to say that economic resources do not matter; on the contrary, they are highly significant predictor of food‐related hardship (Charles et al, 2006; Loibl et al, 2022). But most seniors experiencing food hardship are not poor (Levy, 2015), and other factors clearly matter as well, especially health and functional status (Lee & Frongillo Jr, 2001a, 2001b; Levy, 2015).…”

Introduction to senior hunger special issue

“…In their study of food hardship using the 2002–2018 waves of the HRS, Loibl, et al (2022) focused on the role of mortgage borrowing among seniors and how that activity affects food insufficiency. Housing wealth is the primary asset for many older Americans.…”

A call for justice work in agricultural and applied economics

“…Matching the median net wealth of households to food insecurity, we can see what looks like a relationship. Literature has supported a relationship between wealth and food security (Loibl et al, 2022;Ziliak et al, 2008), which draws attention to the challenges of this historical Black farmer land loss.…”