Salem, Ore. – The minimum wage in Oregon just went up .15 cents to $9.25 an hour. That will amount to an extra 312 dollars a year for a full time minimum wage workers. Oregon now has the second highest minimum wage in the country, behind Washington State.
Chuck Sheketoff is the Executive Director of The Oregon Center for Public Policy, a non profit group that lobbies for better programs for Oregon’s poor and middle class.
“In 2002 Oregon N 2002 Oreon voters raised the minimum wage and also tied the increase to inflation. So every September the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries announced a new minimum wage for the upcoming January”
He says despite the law there are still a lot working poor families in Oregon.
“There are too many working families who are poor- even with a poverty line that many acknowledge is too low, Now we have 7 out of 10 poor families with children who have an adult in the household who work all or part of the year.”
The raise amounts to 312 dollars more each year for a full time minimum wage worker. The state is one of a few that has a minimum wage that adjusts with inflation. The federal minimum wage is 7.25 an hour.
“There’s been a misconception about the minimum wage they aren’t just teens in starting jobs…a lot of them are older people…and another thing is when you increase the minimum wage you increase other jobs near the bottom of the pay scale.”
The raise will affect an estimated 142,000 workers in Oregon.
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