Oregon Governor Abandons $15+ Minimum Wage

Facing a barrage of criticism from business, and labor skepticism over threats of higher unemployment, Oregon Governor Kate Brown is scaling back her $15.52 minimum wage proposal.

Brown has been trying to be the most “Left Coast” governor by pushing a minimum wage that would surpass that of California’s Jerry Brown and Washington’s Jay Inslee.

But the Economist has called Brown’s proposals to move from the eighth-highest-in-the-nation minimum wage in the nation to the first–with $15.52-per-hour around Portland, and $13.50 for the rest of the state–as “A Reckless Wager,” a “gamble with people’s futures,” and causing “harm to the very people they are supposed to help.”

In a legislative hearing on the impacts to employment from either the Governor’s 45-percent increase or the 66-percent increase in one of Oregon’s ballot initiatives, staff admitted that there had been no studies on such large increases.

When questioned by Eastern Oregon assemblymen about the potential devastating competition in their communities from adjacent Idaho’s far lower $7.25-per-hour minimum wage, the governor’s staff justified their proposals by saying, “We have to do this because the ballot measures are so much worse.”

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