In 2003, Santa Fe passed a city ordinance raising the minimum wage in the city to $8.50 an hour. This year, the entire state of New Mexico opted to raise the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. By now, 31 states and several cities have minimum wages above the federal level.

But this can't be done in El Paso because in 2003, the Texas Legislature passed a law prohibiting municipalities from adopting local minimum-wage ordinances.

So El Paso's minimum wage has been stuck for the past 10 years at $5.15 an hour, or $10,712 a year for a full-time worker, what state Rep. Paul Moreno, D-El Paso, calls a "slave wage."

"I think it's a disgrace that in a country like the United States, we still have these slave wages," he said.

The U.S. Congress has two pending bills to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour that may pass sometime this year. An estimated 12.3 percent of El Paso's workers -- about 40,000 people -- make less than $7.25 an hour and would get raises if the law changed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C, think tank.

But actions can be taken locally to put more money in the pockets of El Paso's working poor.

City and county governments can pay their employees a living wage.

Those governments can require the same from their contractors and the private companies to which they give tax incentives. They can put money into programs that train El Pasoans to get higher-paying jobs. Finally, elected state and federal officials can support minimum-wage increases.

The El Paso Times looked at how our government is promoting these effort.

Take care of your own

The Times asked five entities -- the city, the county, Thomason Hospital, and the El Paso, Ysleta and Socorro school districts -- how many of their employees were paid less than $7.25 an hour. The county did the best, reporting only nine of 2,857 employees made $7.25 an hour or less. Robert Almanzán, the county's human resources director, said that except for a few part-timers, employees of the county are paid $8.42 an hour and more.

At the other end of the spectrum was the El Paso Independent School District, the county's largest public employer, with 8,501 workers. Fourteen percent of EPISD employees, or 1,197 people, make $7.25 an hour or less. These low-paid employees are mostly part-timers, seasonal and temporary workers.

District spokesman Louie Villalobos said, "We are a prudent fiscal manager. We devote resources to positions that deserve proper compensation."

Contract good bosses

Federal law requires that government contractors pay prevailing wages and benefits on public works projects. But the law doesn't say how often local governments must survey prevailing wage rates.

The last time the county did such a survey was in 2004. The last time the city did a survey was in 1999.

The surveys also vary widely among entities. For instance, the prevailing wage for a plumber in 2004 was set at $12.22 an hour by the EPISD, at $15.81 an hour by the YISD, at $14.50 an hour by the county, and at $9.17 an hour by the federal government, according to research done by the county.

This means some contractors may be allowed to underpay their workers, depending on what survey the contract goes by.

County Attorney José Rodriguez said he wanted to do do surveys at least every three years and to do them jointly with the city and the hospital and school districts.

Recruit well

The city and the county have new guidelines to give up to 50 percent tax rebates to companies that pay at least 80 percent of their workers above the median county wage of $10.57 an hour. The city signed on in September and the county in March. Before that, incentives were given on a case-by-case basis. So far, three companies have benefited from the new program -- the International Hotel, Sun Valley Outlet Center and Champlain Cable.

Train for success

Project Arriba changes lives, one life at a time.

It takes El Pasoans making an average of $7,100 a year and sends them to school to learn a profession, in medicine or education, that will pay them at least $11 an hour. On average, Project Arriba graduates make $33,000 a year with benefits. The program, in its eighth year, has graduated 427 people so far. This year is the first in which it is the project is money from both the county, $200,000, and the city, $250,000.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the chairman of Project Arriba, said local support was crucial to leverage federal, state and private grants.

"The most important local support we can show is from the city and county governments," he said.

For every three local dollars, Project Arriba gets seven outside dollars.

Change the law

All area Texas legislators except Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, said they supported increasing the state minimum wage. Two legislators actively pushed such legislation this session. They are Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, who was author of a bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $7.25 an hour as of Sept. 1, 2008, and Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, co-sponsored a similar bill in the state Senate.

But all said these bills are up against formidable odds.

"The state is so conservative and so greedy with poor people, we have almost no chance," Rep. Moreno said. "It got to the point where you just stop. You don't even get a hearing on those things."

Haggerty said that the minimum wage has to be raised by the federal government uniformly or that some states will lose competitiveness to others.

At the federal level, U.S. Reps. Silvestre Reyes and Ciro Rodriguez, both D-Texas, co-sponsored the House bill to raise the minimum wage, and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both R-Texas, voted in favor of it.

Chávez has no illusion for the future of her minimum wage bill, but she said, "You cannot concede. You have to continue to fight for families."

This article was published in Week 6 of the El Paso Times Poverty Series.