There are now at least five different paths the minimum wage could take in Oregon – depending on what legislators or voters do and potentially on where you live in the state.
Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday released her own two-track proposal for raising the minimum wage, one covering the Portland metropolitan area and another for the rest of the state. She urged legislators to pass it at their February session.
Meanwhile, two different groups are pursuing potential ballot measures:
- Oregonians for 15 is proposing to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour in three annual steps and then index annual increases to inflation.
- Raise the Wage Oregon is a group associated with Our Oregon, a powerful union-backed group active in state politics. The group has proposed raising the minimum wage to $13.50 over three years, with annual inflation increases after that. The proposal would also allow local governments to approve further minimum wage hikes, something now prohibited under state law.
The accompanying graphic shows how the minimum wage could increase under current law and under the proposals from the governor and the two other groups. The inflationary increases are based on an annual cost-of-living increase of 2.2 percent. That’s how much the cost of living has increased on average since the state began adjusting the minimum wage for inflation in 2004.