The Chronicle buries the lede.
Sen. Wendy Davis
Down in the polls and facing an opponent with a cash advantage, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis on Thursday took her campaign to the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she told supporters the battle for the governor’s mansion has just begun.
“No matter who you are, no matter your gender, no matter your race and no matter who you love, I am going to fight for you,” Davis told the crowd of a couple hundred college students.
Davis’ 20-minute speech broke little new ground, sticking to familiar attack lines and applause points, speaking about the struggles she faced during the early part of her life and calling her Republican opponent Attorney General Greg Abbott the friend of “insiders.”
Speaking to the audience, Davis called for raising the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10 an hour.
“$7.25 an hour is $15,000 a year, and I know from experience that is not enough to support a family,” Davis said.
“It’s not even enough to afford college,” someone in the crowd shouted, to laughs from the audience.
Yeah, “little new ground”, except of course for that whole “raising the minimum wage” proposal, which while perhaps not a game-changer nonetheless swiftly drew the usual pearl-clutching horror from Greg Abbott and his cronies in the business lobby as well as plaudits from labor and affiliated groups. But who cares, all that issues stuff is boring. Horse race stories, that’s where it’s at.
The Chron did catch up on some of those details a bit later.
Calls to increase the minimum wage became the latest flashpoint in the Texas governor’s race on Friday, after Democrat Wendy Davis called for the minimum to be raised to $10.
Davis weighed into the national controversy that has fast-food workers demanding a hike to $15 an hour, from the current $7.25 an hour, during a campaign appearance at the University of San Antonio, where she had targeted Republican Greg Abbott for being a political insider out of touch with working Texans.
“I’ll fight to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10 because this is a family issue,” Davis said Thursday.
A 40-hour-a-week worker currently would make about $15,000 a year at minimum wage, an amount that Davis said is too little to support a family. She repeated her stance in appearances Friday.
“From working to strip our children’s schools of more of than $5 billion that has led to overcrowded classrooms and massive teacher shortages to his opposition to giving 2.8 million Texans a raise that will help them support their families and improve our economy, Greg Abbott is fighting against hardworking Texans,” Davis said at a rally in Denton.
So yes, I think that counts as something new, and as someone who wholeheartedly supports the idea because people need to be paid a wage they can actually live on, I’m delighted to see Davis stand up for this. It would be a big boost to a lot of people who could really use it, and it polls better than you think, too. More like this, please. Statements from the Davis campaign and from the Texas Organizing Project in support of this policy are beneath the fold; Stace and Progress Texas have more.
Today, Greg Abbott expressed his opposition to raising the minimum wage for the first time in the campaign. Wendy Davis issued the following statement in response:
“From working to strip our children’s schools of more of than $5 billion that has led to overcrowded classrooms and massive teacher shortages to his opposition to giving 2.8 million Texans a raise that will help them support their families and improve our economy, Greg Abbott is fighting against hardworking Texans,” said Wendy Davis.
Background:
- Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 would boost economic growth and create 85,000 jobs in Texas. [Economic Policy Institute, 12.19.13]
- In Texas, nearly twice the percentage of women as men are paid at or below the minimum wage. [Houston Chronicle, 4.10.14]
- A minimum wage increase would raise the wages of 2.8 million Texans, including 1.5 million women, 917,000 million parents, and nearly 370,000 Texans who are over the age of 55. [Economic Policy Institute, 12.19.13]
- 55% of workers who would be affected from a minimum wage increase are Hispanic. [Economic Policy Institute, 12.19.13]
- Over 600 Leading Economists Support Raising the Minimum Wage. In a letter, they wrote “In recent years there have been important developments in the academic literature on the effect of increases in the minimum wage on employment, with the weight of evidence now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market.” [“Over 600 Economists Sign Letter In Support of $10.10 Minimum Wage,” Economic Policy Institute]
The following is a statement by Joaquin Guerra, political director of the Texas Organizing PAC on Greg Abbott’s opposition to raising the minimum wage in Texas:
“By opposing a minimum wage increase today, Greg Abbott gave Texans a clear choice between himself and Wendy Davis. By saying no to increasing the minimum wage, Greg Abbott clearly says that he doesn’t value workers being paid an honest wage for an honest day’s work.
“And why would he? He’s more interested in protecting his business and corporate donors who’d be responsible for paying it.
“It’s a no brainier that Texans who work paycheck to paycheck are customers who put their money right back into our economy. Paying them more, not only makes our economy stronger, it also makes working families stronger.”
I really wish every American would be forced to take an economics course at some point during their education. When you raise the minimum wage, you just increased inflation….the silent tax. Everybody pays more for everything they buy….and that includes those newly minted 10-dollar-an-hour-aires. The folks who were making $ 10 want a commensurate raise, which causes the folks making $ 13/hour to want their raise, etc. In-fla-tion.
Here’s another subject that should be required for every student: if your sole source of income is a job paying $ 7.25/hour, maybe you shouldn’t have kids you definitely cannot afford. Maybe put that time and energy into getting promoted or getting a better job, THEN think about starting a family.
Wendy is shamelessly pandering to folks with no understanding of basic economics.
The scary thing is that Bill Daniels probably sincerely believes every single thing he has written here. “Commonsense economics” often is refuted by counterintuitive reality.