Platforms / El Paso Good Jobs Plan
Platform 07 · Jobs & wages
El Paso workers earn two-thirds of the national wage. The next deal has to earn it.
Converting already-funded growth into high-wage local jobs, and making future incentive deals earn their keep.
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El Paso's average weekly wage measured against the national average — $961 here, $1,394 nationally. That ratio, not the unemployment rate, decides whether a household can absorb a car repair.
In short
El Paso's sharper problem is not unemployment — it is pay. The average weekly wage is about $961 against $1,394 nationally, roughly 69 percent, meaning a worker here earns about two-thirds of what the same work pays elsewhere. Layered on top: announcements that don't convert. Meta's Northeast data center scaled from $800 million to roughly $14 billion and is projected to become the City's largest property taxpayer — yet in exchange for an 80 percent tax break the City itself values at up to $550 million, the enforceable commitment is 50 permanent jobs. In July 2026 BlackRock took an 80 percent stake without the incentive agreement changing at all. This plan has two pillars. First, convert investment already secured and under construction — the $40 million Build Back Better award building the Advanced Manufacturing District and the Innovation Network for Manufacturers, which broke ground May 6, 2026 — into filled jobs at a published wage floor, funding the childcare, transportation and healthcare access the City's own analysis names as the binding constraint. Second, jobs-per-dollar accountability in every future Chapter 380 or 312 agreement: a wage floor, a jobs number, and a clawback if the company doesn't deliver.
The numbers
Figure 1
Average weekly wage — the gap that defines the problem
A $433-a-week gap — about $22,500 a year per worker.
Figure 2
What the pipeline actually is, after the NSF award was lost
The $160M NSF Innovation Engine award failed; the $40M Build Back Better award survived because Council made the City a joint administrator — and broke ground May 6, 2026.
"El Paso already has the investment committed — this plan is about turning it into filled, higher-wage jobs for people who already live here, and making sure the next big deal creates more than fifty jobs before it gets a tax break."
Read the whole plan
The full paper runs 8 pages: the problem in detail, what the City can lawfully do about it, what would actually happen, and the charts behind every number on this page.
↓Download the full planPDF · 8 pagesElection Day is November 3, 2026
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Registration closes October 5. Early voting runs October 19–30. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Check your registration and find your polling place at VoteTexas.gov or the El Paso County Elections Department.
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