How would independence affect jobs and wages?

The federal government is a tiny share of Texas employment, the private economy that does the hiring stays exactly where it is, and the conditions that drive job and wage growth get stronger with independence. The jobs are anchored to Texas, not to Washington.

Federal jobs are a sliver of the Texas workforce

Start with the fear that independence wipes out federal jobs. The federal civilian workforce in Texas is about 155,000 people, which is roughly 1 percent of all jobs in the state. Over the last decade that workforce grew, but the Texas economy grew faster, so the federal share of all Texas jobs actually fell, from 1.25 percent to about 1 percent. Texas is not a company town for the federal government. The other 99 percent of Texas jobs are in the private economy and at the state and local level, and they do not depend on which flag flies over the federal buildings.

The federal functions, and their jobs, stay in Texas

Even the federal jobs largely stay. The work happens on Texas soil because the bases, the VA hospitals, the courts, the border stations, and the contractors are physically in Texas. An independent Texas takes over the functions delivered here and keeps the people who deliver them, the report counts that payroll as a Texas cost the whole way through. The two biggest federal employers in the state are the VA and Homeland Security, veterans and the border, exactly the functions a sovereign Texas keeps running.

The private economy that hires is going nowhere

The jobs Texans actually hold are in energy, manufacturing, technology, agriculture, construction, healthcare, and trade. That economy is anchored to Texas ports, Texas energy, Texas plants, and Texas workers, none of which relocate at independence. The F-35 line in Fort Worth, the semiconductor fabs around Austin and Dallas, the refineries on the Gulf Coast, the ranches and farms, all of it stays. The employers stay, so the jobs stay.

Wages rise when the regulatory drag comes off

Wages follow productivity and the cost of doing business. Independence removes a federal regulatory layer that, by TNM's analysis, has cost Texas manufacturers an estimated $30 to $50 billion a year in compliance overhead. Lower compliance cost and a preserved no-income-tax structure let employers put more into operations and pay. And Texas is already the destination, a net 130,000 new residents a year and the nation's leader in corporate relocations, which means more employers competing for workers, the condition that pushes wages up.

Sound money protects the paycheck

A raise only matters if it holds its value, and the inflation printed in Washington has been quietly eating Texas paychecks for years. An independent Texas with sound money, built on the Bullion Depository and HB 1056, stops that erosion. Stable money means a wage gain stays a wage gain instead of being clawed back at the register.

The bottom line

Federal jobs are about 1 percent of Texas employment and largely stay in Texas anyway, the private economy that does the hiring does not move, and independence improves the conditions for both jobs and wages. The work is anchored to Texas, and so are the paychecks.