Petitioners for a ballot initiative to hike the minimum to $15 statewide by 2019 say Brown’s proposal falls short of Oregonians’ needs, especially those living in the Portland metro area.
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Phasing in the increase over several years will provide “a glide path for OR businesses to plan and prepare for the increase”, said Brown, who added that a single parent in OR would have to work 72 hours a week OR make $16.61 an hour to afford the state’s average monthly cost of $864 for a two-bedroom apartment.
The fire under the debate over raising the minimum wage was rekindled Thursday as Gov. Kate Brown unveiled a new plan to proposal to raise the wages for Oregon’s poorest workers.
Pine Tavern General Manager Michael Poe said he doesn’t necessarily think he’d have to resort to that – he told KTVZ he could support a small wage increase – but what about $13.50 per hour?
Lawmakers, the governor’s advisors and other stakeholders have been negotiating a minimum wage deal for weeks behind closed doors. Justin Norton-Kertson, an organizer for 15 Now Oregon, said the long wait would leave workers hanging as the cost of living continues to swell.
Portland-area workers would earn more – minimum wages would start at $11.79 an hour, rising to $15.52 by 2022.
“The reality is is that $15 already isn’t enough in the Portland area, and so a six-year phase-in just doesn’t really cut it”, Norton-Kertson said. Later, hundreds of activists for a higher minimum wage held a rally on the Capitol steps.
In the rest of the state, the plan would hike the minimum to $10.25 in 2017 and $13.50 by 2022.
He said the only compromises his group would support are $15 per hour in the most expensive parts of the state, namely Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties, or a repeal of a law that prevents cities and counties from increasing minimum wages above the state limit.
Betsy Earls of Associated Oregon Industries, on Wednesday advised lawmakers to spend their time on issues other than minimum wage.
Raise The Wage Oregon, which aims to raise the minimum wage to $13.50 over the same three-year period, with the additional option for local government officials to approve their own increases.
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After Brown spoke Thursday, dozens of speakers took turns trashing and praising the notion of a minimum wage increase. Brown said she hopes her new proposal will encourage the backers of two initiative campaigns to lay down their signature-gathering pens. “What I would say to you is we will have to fight that ballot measure probably so we will have to expend resources regardless of what you guys do”. About 1.5 million people live inside Portland’s urban growth boundary, said John Williams, deputy director of Metro’s planning and development department. That bill is a placeholder for the legislative session and could be changed.
