Perry for President?

Some opinion polls now claim that Republican presidential hopeful Texas governor, Rick Perry, is more popular than Obama.

Perry brags that, since June 2009, about 40% of all jobs created in America are in Texas. According to the Department of Agriculture, more than 15 percent of Texans are on food stamps, higher than the national average. If Rick Perry is an economic miracle worker, why are so many Texans going hungry? Simple: because so much of his job creation is minimum wage.

It is true that the Texas unemployment rate of 8.4% is below the national average of 9.1%. It is also true that according to the bureau of labour statistics, of the 211,000 jobs created last year, 37% of these new jobs paid at or below minimum wage. Texas is now tied in last place with Mississippi for the highest percentage of minimum-wage workers and leads the nation for the number of people earning the federal minimum wage or less. In 2010 half a million people in the state earned no more than the minimum wage. Overall, Texas wages lag behind the national average, too. In 2010, the national median hourly earnings for salary and hourly-paid workers was $12.50. In Texas, that number was $11.20.

The minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, or $14,500 per year. This type of wage and job creation doesn't create a living, much less long-term prosperity. According to the Centre for Public Policy Priorities, an average family without employer sponsored health insurance living in the Austin area, must earn $53,080 at a minimum to make ends meet.

There is little doubt Texas has a working environment that makes corporations very happy. The low-wage economy provides a cheap and willing workforce. The lack of strict regulation, especially in areas such as the environment and construction permits, is extremely attractive to companies looking to slash their bottom line. Or to engage in practices that are frowned on elsewhere. Perry has even reformed the legal system, drastically limiting the powers of individuals seeking to sue companies over allegations of malpractice or for damages. There is a fierce debate over whether Perry shaped this system or more or less left it as he found it. But either way the results are clear. "The tax and regulatory polices are more business friendly than in other large states," said Roger Meiners, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. At the same time, Perry has been eager to provide cash or regulatory help to businesses. His Texas Enterprise Fund has shelled out more than $400m to companies that promised to bring jobs and riches to the state. Yet not all did. One study has showed two thirds of projects failed to meet their job targets.

Texas – rich in so many things – is overflowing with poverty. One in seven Texans are on food stamps. Latest census bureau figures show more than one in six Texans are living below the poverty line. The state also has the sixth-highest rate of child poverty in America, at almost one in four children. In healthcare the figures are also shocking. More than a quarter of Texans have no medical insurance, partly because so many of the state's employers do not offer, or are not required to offer, coverage to their workers.

The future does not bode well for the American worker on the eve of Labor Day.