4.7 Percent of Texas Workers Received Lower Wages

According to U.S. Department of Labor’s study, 262,000 Texas workers received lower wages than the federal minimum wage last year. Statistics shows that about 4.7 percent of the state's hourly workers received lower wages, which is the seventh highest share in the nation.

But in San Antonio, it seems that the current situation is becoming harder. It’s harder to find workers who earn the low-end salary because the economy has performed well and because city government has promoted higher “living wages” for its employees and contractors.

Living wages are used as a guide by city administrators in establishing departmental salaries. But it often exceeds minimum wages by several dollars an hour, said Dan Williams, a human resources administrator for the city. As a result, all city employees are paid more than the current minimum wage. Thirty workers in the city's summer programs receive $7.25 an hour. This wage will not change until the labor law updates.

Yolanda Arellano, the executive director of the Texas Restaurant Association's San Antonio branch presents that restaurateurs were aware of the looming salary increases and may have cut back slightly on staff this summer as a result.

Minimum Wage Increase May Impact Small Businesses in West Texas

West Texas has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. So if local businesses want to compete in the job market, they have to be more aggressive to get the sought-after employees.

Russell Johnson, Manager for La Casa Verde Nursery explains, "Well, it really hasn't had that much impact on us, because we have been paying starting employees at more than minimum wage for quite a while now." At any time, they have between 10 and 15 employees on the job.

"We do want to attract quality employees and we do realize our employees do have to make a living and they have families to feed and their expenses, whether it's gasoline or groceries have gone up, so we have to pay more than minimum wage and have for quite a while," Johnson said.

Trish Powell from the Better Business Bureau said the bigger businesses aren't feeling the increase in the minimum wage, but it will to some extent impact the small businesses. "They're going to be impacted the most because that will significantly stretch their budgeting, but they may have already be having problems with it anyways because of the need to hire people at such higher rates," she said.

But Powell also says the minimum wage increase was announced a long time ago, so it gave businesses time to prepare for it.

Texas Minimum Wage Increased

The Texas minimum wage has increased from $5.85 per hour to $6.55 per hour on July 24, 2008 with reference to the federal minimum wage increase. Under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 1007, the deferal minimum wage was scheduled to increase the minimum wage by three steps. Each increase is 70 cents.

There are also a number of other states increasing the minimum wage by reference to the deferal minimum wage, including Maryland, South Dakota, Virginia Idaho and Oklahoma.

In Texas, there is no overtime law at the state level. Instead, most employees in Texas are entitled to 1.5 times their usual mniimum wage rate of pay after working 40 hours under the federal law.

The Texas minimum wage specifically excludes any employee covered by the primary federal minimum wage law - Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA applies to employers who engage in interstate commerce, as well as those with revenue of at least $500,000.