The Valley leans more on government paychecks than most of Texas

Key Data Points

The Valley depends more on government paychecks than most of Texas.

• Starr ranks third and Willacy sixth in Texas for reliance on government jobs
• One in three full-time workers there is employed by a government entity
• That’s well above the statewide average of about one in seven
• In Hidalgo and Cameron counties, it’s about one in five workers.

Local government jobs drove the surge.

• In Starr, local government jobs tripled 
• In Willacy County, they nearly doubled

By Jose Luis Martinez

As the Valley’s workforce grows, its employment mix looks different from much of the state.

While the private sector remains the largest employer in raw numbers, its share of total jobs is smaller here than the statewide norm.

That gap shows up in government employment. 

Public-sector jobs — meaning workers employed directly by federal, state, and local governments — make up a significantly larger share of full-time work in the Valley than across Texas, according to the latest U.S. Census figures covering 2020 to 2024.

That includes federal roles such as Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers; state positions at agencies and public universities; and local jobs in school districts, city and county offices, law enforcement, fire departments, and other municipal services.

By the numbers

In Starr and Willacy counties, for example, about one in three full-time workers were on government payroll during that four-year period. 

To put that in perspective, the statewide average was 15%, or about one in seven workers.

In Hidalgo and Cameron counties, the share was about 20%, or one in five workers. In more populous counties such as Harris and Travis, the share ranged from 12% to 14%, or roughly one in eight workers.

What’s notable is that most Valley counties now have a larger share of government workers than they did during the previous period, which examined data from 2015 to 2019.

Starr County’s share climbed from 22% to roughly 32%, while Willacy rose from 19% to 28%. Cameron had a slight increase of two percentage points from 18% to 20%.

Hidalgo saw a slight decline of less than half a percentage point — not because it lost government jobs, but because other sectors grew faster.

Local government jobs — including school districts, county government, city administration, law enforcement, and other municipal services — drove most of the increase.

In Starr County, local government jobs tripled, rising from about 1,000 to 3,100. State and federal jobs increased by roughly 200 each.

In Willacy County, local government jobs nearly doubled, rising from about 580 to just over 1,000. Meanwhile, state and federal jobs went up by less than 100.

Cameron and Hidalgo counties added thousands of government jobs, though their percentage increases were smaller because they started with larger employment bases.

In Cameron County, local government employment rose from about 13,600 to roughly 16,000. State and federal employment ranged between 5,000 and 6,400 workers.

In Hidalgo County, state government jobs fell from nearly 23,000 to 17,000, but local and federal jobs increased. Local government alone employed about 25,500 workers — nearly double the seating capacity of McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Needless to say, government jobs are booming in most parts of the Valley.

Wage differences help explain part of the shift.

Census data show Hidalgo’s typical earnings for federal government jobs reach upwards of $80,000, with Willacy trailing at $77,000 and both Cameron and Starr County hovering around $66,000. 

Meanwhile, the private sector’s typical earnings ranged anywhere from as low as $38,000 in Hidalgo, Cameron and Starr counties to about $45,000 in Willacy.