Texas: Work, Wages, and the Lie of the “Strong Economy”

By Cliff Potts, CSO
Editor-in-Chief, WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — March 6, 2026

Texas loves to brag about its economy. We hear it constantly: strong job growth, business-friendly climate, booming cities, record corporate relocations. On paper, it sounds impressive. In practice, it often feels like a shell game. Jobs exist, yes—but far too many Texans are working harder than ever while falling further behind.

That gap between headline and lived experience is not an accident. It is the result of choices. And if we are going to talk honestly about the future of Texas, we have to start by telling the truth about work and wages as they actually exist, not as they are marketed.

Jobs Are Not the Same as Livelihoods

Texas has no shortage of jobs. What it has is a shortage of jobs that allow people to live stable lives. A job that does not pay enough to cover rent, healthcare, transportation, and food is not a pathway—it is a treadmill. Too many Texans are stuck running in place.

The rise of gig work has been sold as flexibility and freedom. In reality, it is often insecurity repackaged as innovation. Driving, delivering, freelancing, and patching together income streams has become normal, not because Texans suddenly wanted that lifestyle, but because wages stopped keeping pace with costs. When working two or three jobs becomes common, the problem is not work ethic. The problem is the economy.

Texas prides itself on being pro-business, but an economy that depends on exhausted workers is not strong. It is brittle. It functions until something breaks—an illness, a car repair, a storm, a downturn—and then it collapses fast.

The Cost-of-Living Trap

Housing is the clearest example. Rents have surged across Texas cities and towns alike. Property taxes have climbed even as services lag. For homeowners, stability is eroded by unpredictability. For renters, stability often never existed in the first place.

Wages, meanwhile, have not kept up. The minimum wage in Texas remains stuck at the federal floor, a number that bears little resemblance to actual living costs. Employers argue that the market will adjust. For decades, it hasn’t. What has adjusted is household stress, debt levels, and the number of hours Texans spend working instead of living.

An economy that requires constant hustle just to survive is not resilient. It leaves no room for caregiving, education, community involvement, or rest. Over time, that hollowing out shows up everywhere—in schools, in health outcomes, in civic life.

Work Is Changing—Texas Pretends It Isn’t

Automation, artificial intelligence, and digitization are not future concerns. They are present realities. Jobs are being reshaped, redefined, and eliminated at a pace faster than policy is adapting. Texas talks a good game about innovation, but it has not adequately prepared its workforce for what is already happening.

Skills matter more than ever. Yet Texas continues to underinvest in vocational education, apprenticeships, and adult retraining. College is not the only answer, and pretending it is leaves millions behind. Trades, technical fields, healthcare support roles, and infrastructure work are essential to the state’s future. They require training, dignity, and pay that reflects their importance.

A serious Texas treats workforce development as infrastructure. It plans for transitions instead of reacting to layoffs. It helps people move forward rather than blaming them for falling behind.

Small Businesses, Big Blind Spot

Politicians love to praise small businesses. Far fewer policies actually support them. Local businesses are squeezed between rising costs and competition from massive corporations that enjoy tax advantages and regulatory flexibility. When small businesses fail, communities lose more than jobs—they lose identity and stability.

Supporting small business means access to affordable credit, predictable regulation, local procurement policies, and infrastructure that works. It means recognizing that economic health is built from the ground up, not handed down from corporate headquarters.

Texas has the entrepreneurial spirit to lead here. What it lacks is consistent, thoughtful policy to match the rhetoric.

Immigration and the Reality of the Workforce

Much of Texas’s workforce reality is tied directly to immigration, particularly from Mexico. This is not a political statement; it is an economic fact. Agriculture, construction, hospitality, and caregiving rely heavily on immigrant labor. Treating these workers as expendable or suspicious undermines the very economy Texas claims to protect.

A functional workforce policy recognizes contributions, provides legal clarity, and invests in communication and skills. Bilingualism is not a cultural concession. It is a practical necessity. In a global economy, the ability to work across languages and cultures is an advantage Texas should be cultivating, not resisting.

Work and Dignity

Work is not just about income. It is about dignity. People want to know that their effort matters, that their time is valued, and that their future is not permanently uncertain. An economy that delivers profits without dignity is unsustainable.

Texas has long celebrated independence. But independence does not mean abandonment. It does not mean pretending that structural problems are personal failures. A state that values work must value workers, not just in speeches, but in policy.

That means wages that reflect reality. Benefits that provide stability. Training that opens doors. And systems that recognize the full cost of keeping a society functioning.

What a Strong Economy Actually Looks Like

A truly strong Texas economy would look different than the one we have now. Fewer people juggling multiple jobs. More people able to plan beyond the next month. Fewer families one emergency away from crisis. More workers with skills that travel and adapt as industries change.

Strength is not how loudly we boast. It is how quietly things work.

Why This Matters Going Forward

This series exists to build a record, not a campaign. The record matters because it shows patterns. Texas’s challenges with work and wages are not isolated. They connect directly to education, healthcare, infrastructure, and governance. Fixing one requires acknowledging all.

If Texas wants to remain competitive, prosperous, and livable, it must stop confusing job quantity with economic health. It must stop celebrating growth that leaves people behind. And it must start treating work as the foundation of stability, not a disposable input.

Texas can do better. It already has the people who make it run. The question is whether it will finally build an economy that works for them.

This essay will be archived as part of the ongoing WPS News Monthly Brief Series available through Amazon.

References (APA)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024). Employment, wages, and occupational data for Texas.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024). American Community Survey: Income, housing, and labor trends in Texas.
Texas Workforce Commission. (2024). Labor market and skills gap reports.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. (2024). Regional economic conditions and wage growth analysis.
National Employment Law Project. (2024). Low-wage work and labor standards in the United States.