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Oregon’s minimum wage is going up by 45 cents early next year. Beginning Jan. 1, the minimum wage jumps to $8.40 an hour.
State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian announced the increase Tuesday morning, Sept. 16, saying a 5.37 percent increase in the cost of living since August 2007 was partly the reason for the hike.
Oregon voters approved in 2002 a ballot measure requiring the state to adjust the minimum wage based on changes in inflation measured by the federal Consumer Price Index.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday that the CPI for all urban consumers decreased 0.4 percent in August. However, the August national CPI was 5.4 percent higher than a year ago.
The bureau’s CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers dropped 0.5 percent in August, but was 5.9 percent higher than a year ago.
“This increase is the direct result of the rapidly rising cost of living facing Oregon workers,” Avakian said.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Industries, workers earning the minimum wage represent about 7.5 percent of Oregon’s work force.
LOL JG!
Funny how us taxpaying citizens can figure out the economics of the situation but the 'educated' lawmakers can't.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Can't employers just hire contract workers at the city labor tent for less?
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Your reasoning is simple. But not borne out by the reality of economic experience. As Ezra Klein puts it:
"States with high minimum wages exhibit pretty impressive economic performance. Yes, there are correlation/causation problems there, but if this policy's effects were really so dire, you'd expect them to be overwhelmed. Somehow, they never are.
Eventually, you hit the anti-minimum-wagers trump card, which is, "fine, why not just raise it to $50 then!?" Then they smirk. But we're not going to do that, cause it would be dumb. Similarly, lowering taxes to zero dollars, invading China because we could totally take out Costa Rica, and putting every American on antibiotics would all be dumb ideas based on obvious logical fallacies.
Just because one policy works when implemented at low intensity doesn't mean the effects remain constant if you try and turn the policy into a maximalist panacea.
So we don't do that. We just try and make steady, implementable improvements in the lives of low wage workers, and the minimum wage has, historically, been extremely successful at that mission.
More:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2008&base_name=the_minimum_wage_merrygoround
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 01:55 PM
"States with high minimum wages exhibit pretty impressive economic performance."
Hmmm.... Yeah, Oregon isn't there. On the impressive economic performance, that is.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 03:20 PM
First two headlines on the Times…
“State unemployment rate hits 6.5 percent” and “Oregon’s minimum wage hits $8.40 in January”
Coincidence? I think not…
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 04:30 PM
$8.40/hr!
Do you think that is just too much for someone to live with?
Do you expect "other people" just eat dirt and drink water alone to live on?
Stop being so greedy and stop coming up with excuses!
The one who can and know how already have made much more money than you did and continue to do so! The one who can't (due to many different reasons) have to be in the min. wage positions where they are!
Be a human being with a good heart! A real heart!
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 05:16 PM
Do you think that is just too much for someone to live with?
Its probably not enough even for a single worker. Someone else is paying the rest of what it costs that worker, and their family if they have one, to live.
Funny how us taxpaying citizens can figure out the economics of the situation but the 'educated' lawmakers can't.
Wasn't it "us taxpaying citizens" who passed the initiative that indexed the minimum wage to the cost of living? Common sense wins again.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 08:23 PM
Another reason why Oregon's small business are slowing going out of business! As a business owner, I do not support such policy. Min Wage was NEVER meant to support anyone, ANYONE!
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 10:45 PM
"Min Wage was NEVER meant to support anyone, ANYONE!"
It is meant to guarantee that someone's business model does not depend on someone else paying for much of the cost of keeping their employees alive. Or from using low wages to unfairly compete against businesses who invest in making their workers productive enough to pay them a living wage.
"As a business owner, I do not support such policy."
Businesses that pay less than the minimum needed to support their workers aren't really productive business, they are leeches on the rest of society.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:10 AM
" back in the day" when i was growing up, minimum wage was $1.65 hr.. But "back in the day" I was in high school, living at home, getting an education, yet working to teach me how to be a better person, and how to handle life once I was old enough to move on my own. I got that education so I could go out in the world and make a better financial life for me, and eventually my family. I think it is sad that people ignore their education. It is they who end up working minimal paying jobs for the rest of their lives, and/or becoming a democrat and feeling like the country owes them something. If you really dont like living on minimum wage, work 2 jobs. or get educated and make a better life for yourself. raising the minimum wage, so that high school kids can make $25k a year is doing nothing but putting small businesses out of business.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:32 AM
raising the minimum wage, so that high school kids can make $25k a year is doing nothing but putting small businesses out of business.
Its putting unproductive businesses out of business and allowing productive businesses to succeed.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:51 AM
Oregon's min. wage law is as stupid as Ted's original 24/7 school zone speed limit and cross walk laws. It should be repealed as well. I'd much rather be working for $5 an hour than not be working for $8.40. Even though it would take two jobs just to get by. Having worked for close to min. wage years ago I know how good of an incentive it is to make ones self more valuble to an employer.
All a high min. wage really does is raise the cost of living for every one (Did you get a raise of over 5% last year?) and keep employers that use many low skilled workers out of the state.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:01 AM
All a high min. wage really does is raise the cost of living for every one
It forces businesses to invest in making their employees more productive and prevents businesses from relying on other people paying taxes and donating to charity to supplement their worker's wages.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 10:35 AM
Doesn't anyone here believe in Free Markets and the elimination of wage and price controls.
With one small step at a time (incrementalism) we are moving away from being a free society.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:07 PM
"Doesn't anyone here believe in Free Markets"
They shouldn't. And they shouldn't believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy or a free lunch either. There is no such thing and never has been.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Traver as a business owner I bet you make much more then minimum wage. You stated "Min Wage was NEVER meant to support anyone, ANYONE!" So what exactly is minimum supposed to support? Possibly the minimum standard of living, a roof over your head, heat and food on the table?
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 02:50 PM
As Barbwire says maybe we should give everyone the minimum standard of living, a roof over your head, heat and food on the table?
Sounds like Communism, where all incentive to improve one's own condition, do a better job or make a better widget is lost.
Typical Liberal Solution - Give a person a fish rather than teach a person to fish.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 05:21 PM
Just Saying,
You're great!
"Businesses that pay less than the minimum needed to support their workers aren't really productive business, they are leeches on the rest of society."
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 05:28 PM
It's a silly, vicious cycle. The higher you raise minimum wage, the higher the basic cost of living goes up. Peoples' wages will never keep pace with it. It makes liberals feel good, thinking they're doing something, but in fact it's a regressive process.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 07:24 PM
It has been hard enough on my small business with the latest minimum wage increase and the increased cost of goods like sugar, paper products, and other food items. Now this 45 cent increase will be crippling. I wonder how many small businesses will have to close -- or continue to raise prices.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 07:37 PM
As the minimum wage goes up so does the salary, or hourly wage paid, of all the State Public Employee Union Members. The leadership of all of the Unions are smart enough to index all their negotiated wage increases upon the State Minimum wage, and we're dumb enough to let these wages automatically rise without a single comment. No wonder our Unemployment numbers are up.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:39 PM
mark,
It's not just unions. When you raise the minimum wage of a worker, you have to raise the wage of their supervisors, the supervisors' supervisors and all up the line. Raising minimum wage raises everyone's wages. Then prices go up and the minimum wage worker is no better off. Attacking public employee unions is silly, it effects everyone else too.
(email verified)
Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:49 PM
They use the federal Consumer Price Index to decide how much (if any) minimum wage will be increased. It's the same index used by many organizations to make such decisions if they have employees with COLAs in their contract.
To try to tie minimum wage with union salaries is just ridiculous - they use the same federal numbers.
(email verified)
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:36 PM
97% of people earning the minimum wage don't have to support themselves on said wage because they're students. At most jobs, after 3 or 6 months, a person's wage goes up and then they're making more than minimum wage. My concern is for the handicapped, my older son in particular. He works as a lobby attendant at a McDonald's, and I can't help but wonder if he'll lose his job. It's too bad there isn't some sort of a training wage that would allow employers to pay the average minimum wage worker (a high school student) less while they're training. The student gets his/her foot in the employment door, and the employer saves money by giving that student an opportunity to see what the working world is like.
(email verified)
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 05:46 PM
I'd like to see the statistic that says 97% of those making minimum wage are students. The statistics I've seen show only about half of those earning minimum wage are in the under 24 years-old range.
(email verified)
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 07:26 PM
To "Just Saying",
You probably don't own a business and never have, which makes you unqualified to speak on the subject because you only know one side of the equation. For those of us that do currently own businesses... We are the ones who took the financial risk to begin with, did all the start-up legwork, and put up with the 100-hour workweeks. I personally didn't take a paycheck for the first three years in an effort to make payroll and keep the lights on. Even though you think you know everything you actually know nothing about issues like that. Payroll is by far the most expensive monthly cost I have and you think increasing that expense will force my employees and me to be more productive? If we're more productive it's only because we will have to do more with less because staff will be cut. That is the hard reality of all this, balancing the books. Sorry, it's not all touchy-feely in the real world. If I don't make payroll my employee's quit. If I don't make my loan payment I lose my business. If I raise my prices to offset the minimum wage increase, my customers go elsewhere and everybody loses. I would ask you what you would do in this situation but we both know your answer would be based on assumption and speculation.
(email verified)
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:58 PM
There is no way 97% of minimum wage earners are students. At least half are illegal aliens (ducking now)
Seriously, the biggest problem is that those making a little more than minimum wage (say $10 to $15 per hour) end up having their cost of living go up a lot. The minimum wage earner is going to get a little help, but what about the person making $12 an hour? Businesses will increase prices, and there will be less buying power. It pushes more and more into poverty.
Chances are someone making minimum wage is more likely to get public assistance than someone making more. I guess it will push more people into public assistance. It's a nasty cycle. I'd like all jobs to be living wage jobs but working at McDonald's is not the type of job that is ever going to make an easy lifestyle. It never was intended to, and never will. Well, when minimum wages hits $20 an hour, maybe it will be...
(email verified)
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:19 PM
i think it's all very ridiculous and all of your trifling here isn't helping any.
Get out of your chair and don't come back til you help make this place better.
(email verified)
Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 03:49 AM
"It's too bad there isn't some sort of a training wage that would allow employers to pay the average minimum wage worker (a high school student) less while they're training."
Isn't that really what the minimum wage is in many ways? Most employers that provide any significant training quickly protect that investment by raising pay above the minimum once workers are trained.
"97% of people earning the minimum wage don't have to support themselves on said wage"
I think it is closer to 100% isn't it? Even working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, at $8.40 per hour you aren't going to be able fully support yourself. Employers whose business depends on paying that little are counting on someone else, often taxpayers, to subsidize their employees. Their profits are coming out of someone else's hide.
"My concern is for the handicapped, my older son in particular. He works as a lobby attendant at a McDonald's, and I can't help but wonder if he'll lose his job."
McDonald's isn't going out of business. As long as there is productive work for him to do, your son will have his job. And the day there isn't, he will lose that job whether the minimum wage is raised or not.
"I'd like all jobs to be living wage jobs but working at McDonald's is not the type of job that is ever going to make an easy lifestyle. It never was intended to, and never will."
Yet McDonald's competes against other restaurants and food providers that do provide a living to both their owners and employees. In fact, the rise of more "efficient" fast food outlets like McDonald's put a lot of those out of business. And a lot of that "efficiency" was organizing the business to use unskilled, low wage workers to productively do tasks that had required training and experience.
Now its possible that a higher minimum wage will drive McDonald's to find ways to make those unskilled, low wage workers even more productive. But that probably will require an investment in equipment or more skilled workers to implement. Those investments will help to create more living wage jobs.
And that is the bottom line. The minimum wage prevents companies from beating their competition by hiring employees at starvation wages and counting on someone else to feed them. Instead they have to compete by making their operation and employees more productive. And increased productivity is what has kept our country prosperous.
(email verified)
Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 05:26 AM
"If I raise my prices to offset the minimum wage increase, my customers go elsewhere and everybody loses."
Of course *because* it is a mandated minimum wage, everyone else will also have to raise their wages too, so you won't be losing any customers. That's the beauty of a mandated minimum wage - there is no competitive disadvantage.
Indeed, depending on what your business is, you'll probably get more customers because in January every full-time minimum wage worker will have an extra $18 to spend each week (as long as they aren't sending the extra $18/week back to Mexico - your employees aren't, are they?).
(email verified)
Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 01:10 AM
To "just saying", clearly you know absolutely nothing about business or accounting. If labor costs become intolerable, McDonald's or any other business you care to name goes belly-up. You can argue all you like, but you apparently can't face the reality that 97% of those earning the minimum wage don't have to live on it because they're high school students. Just saying...
(email verified)
Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 05:56 PM
If labor costs become intolerable, McDonald's or any other business you care to name goes belly-up.
A business that is organized so inefficiently that it depends on paying starvation wages isn't a viable business.
You can argue all you like, but you apparently can't face the reality that 97% of those earning the minimum wage don't have to live on it because they're high school students.
a) That is a "reality" that no one seems to be able to document. b) So what? The fact that they are relying on their employee's parents, rather than charity or taxpayers, to supplement their employees wages does not make them a viable business.
There seems to be this idea out there that businesses deserve to be profitable, no matter how inefficient they are. If you can't organize your business to be profitable while paying a living wage, maybe you should try a different business or find a job where you are competent.
(email verified)
Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 06:33 PM
Just Saying/Jane/others:
Only about 25% of minimum wage workers are age 16-19 (for 2006 and across the U.S. - not sure about Oregon - http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2006.htm). About half the minimum wage workers are above 25 (again 2006 U.S. numbers). 22% were married with a spouse present in the home (in 2006).
Maybe that will reshape how some of you think about minimum wage.
(email verified)
Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 09:34 PM
"Just Saying"
Obviously you are someone who thinks you are owed something. That your employer owes you something. That is backwards.
Prices and wages should be set by the market and only the market. If an employer puts out a for hire sign at 25 cents/hour and he can't hire anyone then I guess he will have to raise his wages to that point where someone with the neccessary skills will work for him.
There is no such thing as a living wage. The only wage is what the market will bear.
If you like wage and price controls so much maybe we should let the state and federal government have control of all markets so that they set all prices. If they can set wages, then why not the cost of your car or house. After all shouldn't everyone have 3 cars, a house and 2.5 kids. It's only fair isn't it. Yes this is absurd, just as absurd as setting a minimum wage rather than allowing the market to set prices.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 01:27 AM
"Of course *because* it is a mandated minimum wage, everyone else will also have to raise their wages too, so you won't be losing any customers. That's the beauty of a mandated minimum wage - there is no competitive disadvantage."
Even though payroll is my largest expense it's not the only consideration when running a business. Service or product industries can price themselves out of business when they charge too much. People don't have to go to another like store; they can just decide not to buy that product/service any longer, period. Do you own and operate a business? Oh and, there's nothing beautiful about mandated government increases! You're probably a proponent of taxation without representation too, huh?
"Indeed, depending on what your business is, you'll probably get more customers because in January every full-time minimum wage worker will have an extra $18 to spend each week (as long as they aren't sending the extra $18/week back to Mexico - your employees aren't, are they?)."
Nice slap at the Mexican’s. I don’t hire anyone who’s illegally here and I don’t monitor what my employee’s do with their money after I’ve paid them.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 08:45 AM
To "Just Saying",
You probably don't own a business and never have, which makes you unqualified to speak on the subject because you only know one side of the equation. For those of us that do currently own businesses... We are the ones who took the financial risk to begin with, did all the start-up legwork, and put up with the 100-hour work weeks. I personally didn't take a paycheck for the first three years in an effort to make payroll and keep the lights on.
Even though you think you know everything you actually know nothing about issues like that. Payroll is by far the most expensive monthly cost I have and you think increasing that expense will force my employees and me to be more productive? If we're more productive it's only because we will have to do more with less because staff will be cut. That is the hard reality of all this, balancing the books. Sorry, it's not all touchy-feely in the real world. If I don't make payroll my employee's quit. If I don't make my loan payment I lose my business. If I raise my prices to offset the minimum wage increase, my customers go elsewhere and everybody loses. I would ask you what to do in this situation but we both know your answer would be based on assumption and speculation.
But..... Maybe I'm wrong; maybe you do own a business with a mortgage, employees, customers, etc. If so please tell us how you are so efficient and pay your employee's so well, (you’ve written enough about inefficiencies and starvation wages). Please be specific in your examples so we can conclude that everything you've posted is based on experience and not just what you’ve read in books or other's have told you. Waiting patiently to learn from your experience.
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 09:26 AM
Well, I guess everyone including lawmakers have lost sight of what the minimum wage was intended for. It was not implemented to live, raise a family or retire on. It was made for unskilled (read high schoolers or the like) workers to make some money, learn simple economics and resposnsibility. Keep raising the wage to appease the masses of lazy, unskilled laborers and watch small busniness owners have a hard time keeping their bottom line in the black.
(email verified)
Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 08:45 AM
Why stop at $8.40, why not pay $10.00 or $20.00, hell lets pay them all $100.00 and then there will be no "poor" for you Demorats to whine about! (So what if a cheezeburger, fry & coke cost $55.00... you are making a $100.00 an hour!)
After all why are there "poor" now, I thought you Demorat's "War on Poverty" (Johnson 1964) was to solve the problem of the poor!
Oh wait, you Demorats don't like war, you I guess that you "Cut & Run" from that "war" too!
(email verified)
Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 10:36 PM
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Re: Oregon’s minimum wage hits $8.40 in January
Forcing businesses to pay a minimum wage that is not commensurate with the skills/education required to do the job cuts into their bottom line.
So businesses raise their prices.
Which means people living on minimum wage can no longer afford those goods.
Consumer spending flattens, inflation increases, the cost of living goes up.
So we raise the minimum wage again...
And the cycle continues.
Yeah, that socialism stuff really works.
Just look at the governments in South America, they're doing great, no poverty, no crime, and a stable and flourishing economy and society! (note sarcasm here).
As for northern Europe's brand of socialist labor policies - their citizens may be happy, but then again, so are sheep.
Next time I meet a sheep that has a free spirit and a mind of his own, I'll ask the pigs flying by to elect him president of a frozen hell.
"JG"
(email verified)
Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:30 AM