Rick Perry presidential campaign, 2016/Labor and employment

	; ; Former presidential candidate; Rick Perry
	Political offices: ; Governor of Texas; (2000-2015); Lieutenant Governor of Texas; (1998-2000); Texas Agriculture Commissioner; (1990 - 1998); Texas House of Representatives; (1984-1990)
	Perry on the issues:
	Taxes • Government regulations • International trade • Budgets • Agricultural subsidies • Federal assistance programs • Foreign affairs • Federalism • Natural resources • Healthcare • Immigration • Education • Abortion • Gay rights • Civil liberties
	Republican candidate:
	Donald Trump
	Ballotpedia's presidential election coverage; 2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016

Rick Perry announced his presidential run on June 4, 2015.^[1]

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This page was current as of the 2016 election.

On August 18, 2015, Rick Perry rejected the idea that states needed to guarantee equity pay through legislation. “Women already get equal pay. We don’t need symbolic pieces of legislation jumbling up our code,” Perry explained during an interview on CNN.^[2]

According to a 2015 study by NPR, during Rick Perry's tenure as governor of Texas, the state added 2.2 million jobs at a rate 3.8 times quicker than the national average.^[3]

During an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" in May 4, 2014, Perry said job creation was more important than raising the minimum wage. Perry stated, "Well, we focus on the maximum wage rather than the minimum wage. 95% of all the jobs that are created in my home state were above the minimum wage. So the idea that you should be focused on the minimum wage when in fact you ought to be focused on policies that create this environment where jobs can be created."^[4]

Texas is a right-to-work state. Appearing on FOX News in 2014, Perry said Texas "is a great place for labor to spend time to find out what people really think about right-to-work states. If they want to see how jobs are created and how we free people and I will suggest to you that union folks learn a thing or two."^[5]

In 2013 and 2014, Perry traveled to various states with Democratic governors in an attempt to persuade their businesses to relocate to Texas. Perry advertised Texas as the most business-friendly state in the country for its low-tax, low-regulation and lawsuit-limited climate.^[6]^[7]

When asked for his jobs plan at the FOX News-Google GOP debate in September 2011, Perry answered, " Number one, we get rid of Obamacare. Secondly, we pull back all of those regulations that are job-killing today, whether it's Dodd-Frank or whether it's the EPA. And then we sit with Congress and we lower those corporate tax rates, we lower those personal tax rates, and then we put our plan to make America energy independent, and that is the way you get America working again."^[8]

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