Texas leads nation in minimum wage workers

[w8liftinglady]

(Note to Stan- aren't you PROUD of our free-market business plan?)

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/wage-124497-workers-leads.html

If there’s anything faintly resembling good news in a just-released report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s that Texas’ share of hourly workers at or below minimum wage among U.S. states fell from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 9.5 percent in 2010.

This just barely qualifies as a positive, however, since the number of Texas hourly workers at or below the prevailing federal minimum wage still increased by 76,000 over 2009. At 9.5 percent, Texas ties with Mississippi in terms of U.S. states with the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.

Texas and Mississippi take top honors, therefore, in terms of having the lowest paid workers among all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To be fair, low wages are partly a function of lower cost of living. In Cameron County and the Rio Grande Valley, low wages and low cost of living — by some measures — go hand in hand, and are both a blessing and a curse in the view of economic development officials.

Except for 2003, the number of hourly paid workers at or below federal minimum wage declined steadily in Texas between 1998 and 2006. But Congress raised the minimum in 2007, 2008 and 2009, which had the effect of pushing more Texans over the line into minimum wage territory, says Cheryl Abbot, an economist with the BLS’s Southwest Information Office in Dallas.

“People who were making above minimum wage, when it bumped up they were suddenly in this category of minimum wage workers,” she says. “That accounts for the part of the increase.”

Among Texas’ 5.7 million hourly workers, 550,000 earned at or below federal minimum wage in 2010, according to the BLS report. Of those, 268,000 were right at the minimum mark wage and 282,000 fell below it. Median earnings among all hourly workers in Texas in 2010 was $11.40. Nationally, the median was $12.50.

While Texas — with Mississippi — has the most workers at minimum wage or less in the country, the state has plenty of company: Nationally, the proportion of hourly workers at or below minimum wage in 2010 was 6 percent — up substantially from 4.9 percent in 2009. The United States had 73 million hourly workers in 2010, according to the BLS.

“The fact that Texas’ percentage went up certainly isn’t any different from what we saw nationally,” Abbot says. “Wage increases for all workers were pretty low last year, if they happened at all. Again, that’s a reflection of the continued effects of the recession.”

Texas and several other states have legal minimum wage standards that match the federal standard. Five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — have no minimum wage standard. More than a dozen states, concentrated in the West, Upper Midwest and Northeast, have standards higher than the federal standard. In four of those states — Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington — the number of hourly workers at or below minimum wage is less than 2 percent. Six percent is the national average.

Also, 2010 continued the persistent trend of women earning at or below minimum wage in greater numbers than men — 11.9 percent to 7.4 percent.

“It’s certainly nothing different if you’re looking at the data historically, but if you’re a woman your odds are much greater than a man that you’re making minimum wage,” Abbot says.

Gilberto Salinas, of the Brownsville Economic Development Council, says Brownsville and McAllen traditionally have ranked at the bottom in terms of low wages in the state.

“That’s good and bad,” he says. “In that regard we get noticed by a lot of companies. The low cost of labor is very attractive. But on the flip side, if that’s the only thing really getting you on their radar it’s not such a great situation.”

Low wages tend to be a fact of life in cities where government — rather than the private sector — is the top “industry,” Salinas says.

“The wealth of a community can be easily determined by looking at the top 10 or top 20 (employers) doing business in your community. If government dominates that list, you’re not going to have a lot of wealth in that community. Every community has government, but the wealth is determined by private sector. They’re the ones who tend to pay higher wages.”

[ck4829]

1. Texas and Mississippi - The Tea Party's vision for America

[w8liftinglady]

2. we also lead in uninsured and poverty rate

(note to stan- your greatest fantasy come true!Free market at work)
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/texas-has-highest-uninsured-rate-in-us

Texas has highest uninsured rate in US
Poverty rate also rose in the state
Updated: Friday, 17 Sep 2010, 10:17 AM CDT
Published : Friday, 17 Sep 2010, 10:17 AM CDT

Pamela Cosel
AUSTIN (KXAN) - New Census Bureau data released this week shows Texas remained the state with the highest uninsured rate in the nation at 26.1 percent , or 6.4 million uninsured people.

Despite growth in the total uninsured population in Texas, the population of uninsured children actually declined. Children, like adults, continued to lose coverage through employer-sponsored insurance, but increased coverage through public programs like CHIP and Medicaid more than made up for that loss.

The population for Texas is listed at 24.8 million residents. The 2009 population estimate for Austin is 786,386, the fourth most populated city in the state behind Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

The Census Bureau also released preliminary state-level data showing that poverty rose substantially in Texas, with 428,000 new Texans joining the ranks of the poor from 2008 to 2009; the state’s poverty rate rose to 17.3 percent from 15.9 percent (e.g., a family of two adults and two children making less than $21,756 annually).

The U.S. Census Bureau notes that real median household income in the United States in 2009 was $49,777.

[ck4829]

3. And Miss has the highest rate of child mortality

But it's OK, since Barbour said it's the safest state for the unborn.

[w8liftinglady]

6. they're "welfare ticks" once they're born.

[ret5hd]

4. hmmmm..."Every community has government, but...

the wealth is determined by private sector. They’re the ones who tend to pay higher wages.”



Isn't that just the opposite of what we've been hearing from the likes of Walker, etc?

[w8liftinglady]

5. now,now- don't confuse them with facts. It's UnAmerican.

[w8liftinglady]

7. and info from the Austin Food Banks... there are hungry in Texas,y'all

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/texas-has-highest-uninsured-rate-in-us

Hunger in Central Texas
•About 48,000 different people receive emergency food assistance from CAFB in any given week.
•CAFB serves nearly 300,000 people each year.
•41 percent of CAFB clients are children.
•95 percent of CAFB partner agencies say they could no longer serve their clients if the Food Bank shut down tomorrow.
•More than a third of CAFB's older clients go for extended periods without food.
•1 in 5 families served by CAFB experience the physical pain of hunger.
•Almost half of CAFB clients have at least one working adult at home.
•Almost half of the families CAFB serves have to choose between buying food and paying utilities.
•82 percent of CAFB clients are not homeless.
Source: Hunger in America 2010: Central Texas Report

Hunger in Travis County

•About 43% of households with incomes below the poverty level have trouble providing enough food and more than one-third of low-income families with incomes somewhat above the poverty level (up to 185%) also have difficulty providing adequate access to food.
•Income has not kept pace with the cost of food. In 2000, a family of four could live on a food budget of about $434 per month; in 2010, this cost was $583, an increase of about 35%.
•Food-related calls to 2-1-1 increased by 8% (from 6,457 calls in 2008 to 6,987 in 2009).
•More families are enrolling in SNAP (formerly Food Stamps), and that number in Travis county steadily increases. In December 2010, there were 49,409 SNAP cases in Travis County with 110,756 people (about 11% of all Travis County residents) receiving benefits.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Texas is always big at whatever it sets its mind to.

[The Philosopher]

9. On paper & on the campaign trail...

2 minimum wage jobs are far better than 1 high paying job. What's better than 2 minimum wage jobs? 3 minimum wage jobs! Cue Gov. Perry laughing like a muppet.

Of course, "in these hard times," we should be grateful for the chance to even work at all! I guess no one believes anymore that human dignity and the economy go together.