Texas Democrats’ Stance on Wages and Workers

This post begins a series of blogs this summer revisiting the 2024 Texas Democratic Party Platform and how we are continuing to embody and invest in these principles.

The 2024 Texas Democratic Party Platform begins with section on wages and workers.  Let’s look at some of the major points, some context, and hopefully some derived hope and direction for the 2026 campaign.

From the overview, the Party supports policies and programs that:  “Promote jobs with good wages, benefits, and safe working conditions;…”   Following the overview, a series of planks, beginning with “All Texas workers should receive living wage indexed to inflation, including tipped workers”.   

How strong a plank this should be for our party, the state over? How little have we heard about this since the election (If I were writing from an area with a stronger union presence, or if I maybe frequented other news sources, I might have a different perspective here).

The national minimum wage has remained at $7.25/hr for too long, since 2009.  Reasons are various.  Texas minimum wage is pegged to the national.  Texas has also denied big cities raising the minimum wage in their jurisdiction.  This repressive state government intrusion fits a pattern, as you probably know from following Texas news over the years—segue to other worker related topics covered in later blogs.
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A Living Wage

A Living Wage is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support themselves (and/or a family) working full time, 2080 hrs per year (MIT Living Wage project).  The MIT Living Wage calculator allows you to find current estimated living wages for several household situations for each state and for each county within a state. For examples:

For Texas as a whole, 1 adult working, no children, LW = $21.82/hr x 2080 = $45,385 annual.  With  2 adults working, and 2 kids in the family LW= $24.63 x 2080 = $51,230 annual.  This is the basics, no fluff, no vacations expenses.
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Basic family and employment data for Texas and for Erath County can be found at https://uspopulation.org/texas/erath-county/.  For examples:
Erath County, the population over age 16 is 34,297;   61.3% are working or looking for work.

Top jobs in Erath County by numbers of people:

• Management - 1831
• Education, library - 1623
• Food prep, serving - 1277
• Sales - 2047
• Construction - 1451
• Production - 1014

(I did not find categories specific to Dairy work.)

• Texas median household income - $67,321.
• Median Erath County household income - $56,691.
  (Household underlined to contrast with individual figures given in the table below.)

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SECTOR	# OF WORKERS	% OF WORKFORCE	AVERAGE INCOME
All Occupations	12,992,730	100.00%	$43,460
General and Operations Managers	418,050	3.22%	$83,220
Fast Food and Counter Workers	328,900	2.53%	$22,680
Customer Service Representatives	325,840	2.51%	$36,680
Retail Salespersons	314,060	2.42%	$28,360
Home Health and Personal Care Aides	306,320	2.36%	$21,880
Cashiers	286,660	2.21%	$25,780
Stockers and Order Fillers	266,780	2.05%	$34,380
Registered Nurses	231,060	1.78%	$79,830
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers	229,580	1.77%	$34,380
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers	210,940	1.62%	$46,820

From 2022, figures for the State of Texas from https://www.usawage.com/popular/jobs-state-texas.php.

For more information on wages:

• Minimum Wage by State
• Minimum Wage by State - Federal Reserve of St. Louis

Not All Minimum Wage is Uniform

Not all states have their minimum wage pegged to the low national number.  A number of states have set a much higher minimum wage.  This fact lets us contest the notion that raising the minimum will raise the cost of everything, or drive businesses to close or fire workers.  The book cited below gives good examples from a recent period.


This legislative session, as in others past, Democratic members have filed bills to raise the state minimum wage.  As far as I know, these have all gone to the Workforce subcommittee.  As of May 26, 65 bills were still in committee; 26 had passed out of committee.  As we were made aware, all Republican priorities would be met before Democratic bills would be considered.  We can assume, at the date of this writing, that the wage bills will be left in committee.

You can look up the minimum wage bills.  There are differences in amounts and indexing to cost of living:  

• HB 5163 (Bryant)
• HB 2836 (Anchia)
• HB 3447 (Morales and Christina)
• HB 5315 (Talarico)
• HB 5368 (Rodriguez Ramos)
• HB 5598 (Bryant)  

These representatives deserve our thanks for entering the rigged race.​

Raising the minimum wage has popular support—so why have we not seen legislation advance to raise it?  The answer probably has to do with lobbying by moneyed interest groups, especially by the National Restaurant Association. Another reason why we need money out of politics.

You may tell me, as one acquaintance did, that you don’t know anyone who is working for just minimum wage.  First, that alone says that the minimum is an important reference point.  Second, my acquaintance may feel good about receiving twice the minimum, but since we know the minimum has not kept up with inflation, she would need to be receiving three times the minimum to be justly compensated.

Raise the minimum.  A rising tide raises all boats.
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Suggested Reading

“Pay the People : Why Fair Pay is Good for Business and Great for America”, John Driscoll, Morris Pearl and the Patriotic Millionaires. 2024.

The authors do a great service in this broad overview of hourly pay, the potential and problems surrounding increasing the minimum wage and other problems facing hourly workers.  PtP reviews the minimum wage landscape across the US and beyond.  Many states have set their wage minimum to the federal standard, which has remained unchanged since 2009.  Other states have higher minima.  The difference among states allows the authors to debunk common arguments against raising the minimum wage.

They also explore other aspects of potential legislation to increase wages, such as the time over which increases should be phased in, or exceptions to the minimum wage.  I didn’t realize, but food servers, who can be tipped, have a much lower minimum wage set, on the expectation that tips will make up the difference.   Is this fair?   No.

PtP explores other problems wage earners face, especially wage theft—overt or covert.  And they cover the great power of the lobbyists from the National Restaurant Association, and other businesses that make it hard to pass increases.  Also there is the aspect of how to adjust the minimum wage to account for inflation.  A number of the bills submitted to this Texas legislative session include in their title a tie to cost of living.   We hear of other places where an attempt to make a minimum wage fair has been institutionalized.  For example, in Australia there is a commission that meets annually to set the nation’s minimum wage based on current cost of living.

Meanwhile, there is the “gig economy”.  PtP reviews the situation here.  When are contract workers actually employees? Can a gig-worker achieve fair pay?  Are workers unfairly manipulated and taken advantage of?  But an unspoken context in the gig work discussion is that many people have to take on other work because the job they primarily do does not pay adequately.

Pay the People is a good book.
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It debunks some common myths concerning raising the minimum (they have much to say on some points—my sentences don’t do justice):

1. “Raising the minimum wage will force businesses, especially small businesses, to close.”  Contradicting evidence is given.
2. “The minimum wage is only a starter wage for teenagers; it’s not something people need to survive.”  This is wrong, a fantasy.  Millions of Americans from all walks of life work for minimum wage.
3. “Raising the minimum wage can decrease the earnings of low-wage workers, because businesses have to cut hours or eliminate jobs.”  Sounds logical, but isn’t backed up by evidence.
4. “Raising the minimum wage will lead to increased automation, eliminating low-wage jobs entirely.”  This is a tired argument that hasn’t held up.  Looking at a number of states and localities with increased minimum wages, we do not see a decrease in employment in low-wage industries.  Changes are coming anyway, and the changes in technology and automation have created new jobs as old ones disappear.
5. “This isn’t an issue for government, because the free market will take care of it.”  We do not have a free market.  Workers are generally not free to choose among a wide variety of employment opportunities.  And industries have no incentive* themselves to provide workers with higher pay if they can get workers at a lower pay level.  (*The book provides a number of ways and examples of businesses that have benefitted by offering higher wages, such as in worker motivation and retention.)
6. “An increase in the minimum wage will drive costs up, so everyone ends up paying more.” We don’t have to worry about this scenario, because it’s already happened without ill effect.  We can look at previous times that the national minimum was raised.  We can look at what has happened when various states raised the minimum.  Prices do not go up when the minimum is raised.  In many industries, the cost of labor is not a large part of the price of what that labor produces.
7. “Minimum wage workers don’t earn more because their labor isn’t worth more.” The book’s authors note ”There is no such thing as a worthless job (except perhaps for lobbyists fighting against raising the minimum wage.)  “it matters little how entry-level or “low-skill” a job is (or is perceived to be), there is someone in that role because it is essential.  “Low-wage workers make more money for their employers than what they’re paid; otherwise they wouldn’t have been hired.”
8. “Eliminating the tipped minimum wage (where tipped workers earn a lower minimum wage plus tips) means people won’t tip and thus tipped workers will earn less.”  Findings indicate this is not the case.  Attitudes toward tipping do not change.  There is evidence to support the claim that the restaurant industry is doing better in those states where tipped workers make the standard minimum wage.

Worker and wage issues are good potential campaign points to dislodge potential voters from apathy or wrong-headedness.

Do workers rights and wages influence how you vote? Let us know below.

David A. Brock

David is a retired scientist/naturalist who would like to be spending more time with his books, binoculars, water garden, and wildflowers.  He is from South Dakota, with stops in Montana; Austin; Elgin, TX; central Kansas; and now Dublin, TX.