These Texans earn the lowest possible wage a person can legally be paid. Across the country, nearly 10 million Americans earn the minimum wage. It's time for these workers to get a raise. Let's face it.
Many businesses pay the minimum wage and no more for certain jobs.
Working forty hours a week, without taking off a day, a single parent of two earning the minimum wage will make less than poverty level. Today's minimum wage buys less than the minimum wage did in 1978. During the Reagan years, when we had no increase in the minimum wage, its value plummeted by nearly 30 percent. In the past, the minimum wage provided enough income to lift a family of three our of poverty. That is no longer the case.