For years, Elvira Adame’s daughter has struggled to make ends meet. A full-time cashier at Palo Alto College, she earns $8.50 per hour without benefits, sick leave or vacation time, Adame said. To pick up the slack, her daughter has a second job but, even then, it’s barely enough for her to get by.

“It angers me that my daughter, who works for a public community college, is stressed and tired all the time from working so hard,” she said. “I want something better for her.”

Adame was among roughly 300 concerned citizens who gathered Sunday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church Civic Center to support COPS/Metro, a grass-roots community activist organization, and its strategy to raise the living wage for public employees in San Antonio and Bexar County. The plan looks to boost the current floor wage for city and county employees, which is $11.47 per hour, less than the $14.91 per hour to qualify for food stamps, to 130 percent of the Federal Poverty Level over three years or just to under $15 per hour.

The organization will submit the plan to the Bexar County Commissioners Court at its next meeting Tuesday.

“I will support anything we can to lift up out wages,” said Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson. “Research shows we’re below where we should be and when I look at the central city areas that I’ve seen all my life, I see great opportunity for improvement.”

Despite his support, County Commissioner Paul Elizondo cautioned the crowd about some difficulties with finding the money to raise wages.

“There are parts of this proposal that are difficult because we don’t want to wind up in a situation where we pay employees fairly with one hand and have to raise their taxes on the other side,” said Bexar County Commissioner Paul Elizondo. “I never promised anything I couldn’t keep but I will work for it.” Mayoral candidate Mike Villarreal and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte also voiced their support for the measure.

Additionally, despite a roughly 5 percent unemployment rate, which is typically seen as full employment, about 20 percent of people in San Antonio live in poverty, according to data presented from the Center for Public Policy Priorities. A look a little deeper into the data shows about one-third of children under five years old and nearly half of single mothers with kids younger than five years old live below the poverty line. Many times, these struggling families dig themselves deeper into debt by turning to high-interest lending services, which the organization also is working to regulate, said Diane Duesterhoeft of COPS/Metro.

“We want our public entities that we’re paying tax dollars toward to pay their employees wages that they can live on without requiring any governmental assistance,” said Duesterhoeft. “It’s the right thing to do.”

vlucio@express-news.net