— a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation —

Minimum Wage

A minimum wage is a government-mandated wage control that takes negotiating power away from workers and employers.

Recommendations

Remove government barriers to work, like the minimum wage and excessive occupational licensing
Increase skills by improving educational outcomes through competition among schools
Expanding investment and job opportunities by passing a Conservative Texas Budget that increases government spending of taxpayers’ money by no more than population growth plus inflation.

Setting a minimum wage floor above a market wage results in unemployment, especially for low-skilled workers.
It slows future job creation and pushes unemployed workers who would take a wage at less than a minimum wage into long periods of unemployment and dependency on family or taxpayers.
Research shows that Texas could lose around one million full-time jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $15 per hour—more than any other state.
BLS data for Texas show that 196,000 people statewide, or only 3.1 percent of the 6.3 million hourly paid workers, earned a wage at or below the minimum wage in 2017. The median hourly wage was $17.39 per hour in Texas that year—more than double the minimum wage.
The minimum wage puts more power in the hands of higher-skilled workers who will build and maintain labor-saving products, like automated kiosks, contributing to an upward redistribution of income.

HB 194

Raises the state’s minimum wage from $7.25/hour (Federal rate) to $15/hour
Setting a minimum wage floor above a market wage results in unemployment, especially for low-skilled workers, and slows future job creation
Wage controls reduce the ability of employers and workers to negotiate a wage and terms of employment
Texas could lose around one million full-time jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $15/hour