Texas Tall Talk: Prick Erry Style

Texas may be a jobs engine, but the sort of jobs being created in Texas, for which our governor is taking too much credit, are predominantly low-wage or minimum wage jobs. Median hourly wage here is $11.20. Work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks in a year and you gross $23k a year. Can I get a side order of health care with that, please?

"Robert Reich:

...If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

"Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas’s workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

Texas has also been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose from 221,000 to 550,000 – that’s an increase of nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below – compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state also has the lowest percentage of workers without health insurance. Texas schools rank 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

"The Perry model of creating more jobs through low wages seems to be catching on around America."

Oh, good. When he's president we Texans won't notice a thing.