The questions continue, no matter what you do for a living or what part of the Permian Basin you live in... The minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 per hour. Is that enough for a family or even an individual to survive on even at 40 hours a week? Should it be raised? If it should be raised--to what? And the arguments come from all sides on this one: If you're a business owner--raising it will make you have to downsize to fewer employees, or in some cases--close altogether; if you're a worker whose wages are in that range and you're trying to make ends meet--you're looking for help and a way to make life easier and better for you and your family.

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Many fast-food chains have been forced to downsize their workforce nationwide and install electronic kiosks for customers to place their orders, instead of an actual person. Some have offered a starting wage that's higher than minimum wage to lure new workers to either change jobs or begin their working years by earning a better wage. No matter which side of the fence you're on-I think the only people allowed to voice an opinion on this topic are the ones who live in that world on a daily basis. If you don't own a business, don't pay employees, if you're not a worker who earns this wage or close to it--then you really don't understand what it's like to be on either side of this coin. Could THIS be the reason so many jobs go unfilled all over the country? We need service industry workers as badly as we need industrial, factory and construction workers... So what's it gonna take to get people back to work?

LOOK: Here is the richest town in each state

Just saying the names of these towns immediately conjures up images of grand mansions, luxury cars, and ritzy restaurants. Read on to see which town in your home state took the title of the richest location and which place had the highest median income in the country. Who knows—your hometown might even be on this list.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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