Half a dozen bills designed to raise the state鈥檚 minimum wage are working their way through a Texas House committee. Currently, Texas pays at the federal rate which is $7.25 an hour.
A significant bump in hourly pay could be a long shot in a staunchly conservative legislature. One advocacy group has just issued a study endorsing President Obama's call to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
If the has its way, no worker in Texas would make less than $10.10 an hour. That's almost a $3 raise from the current rate.
鈥淚f you are working full time in Texas and make a minimum wage, you鈥檙e only bringing home a little over $15,000 a year,鈥� says Garrett Groves, with the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
The Austin-based non-profit鈥檚 new study calls for a minimum wage increase now, and Groves spent Tuesday at the Capitol listening to proposed legislation that would do just that.
鈥淚f we want to live in a state where hard work really means self-sufficiency, we need to raise the minimum wage in Texas,鈥� he says.
The study by the CPPP shows more than a quarter of Texas workers would get a raise if the minimum wage jumped to $10.10. And Groves says most of those employees are the core of the workforce.
鈥淪ixty percent of those who would benefit from a minimum wage increase are in their prime working years, that鈥檚 25 to 64, when they should be saving for college, investing in retirement,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not able to do so on a minimum wage salary.鈥�
The study also calculated what it calls a 鈥渓iving wage鈥� in major Texas cities. In Dallas/Fort Worth, a single adult needs to make $13.84 an hour to cover food, housing, healthcare and transportation. That鈥檚 the equivalent of almost two jobs at the current minimum wage.
