SB 1532A Minimum wage increase

PERSONAL CHOICE: A recent report by Eric Fruits, Ph.D., president and chief economist for Economics International Corp. and an adjunct professor at Portland State University, agrees with the LRO. Fruits reports increasing the minimum wage to $13.50 would result in the loss of around 55,000 jobs by 2020, and raising it to $15 would cost 67,000 jobs. For workers increased to $13.50 per hour, their average annual income would be $1,512 less and $15 per hour workers would loss $1,515 per year. The LRO July 2014 reports says that a $2.40 raise per hour that nearly 3,000 jobs will be lost the first year and it would continue to increase to 20,000 jobs lost by 2025.

FREE MARKET: California announced this week, a minimum wage of $12.55 an hour in Oakland, Calif., and Wal-Mart announced it was the reason for its store’s closure.  We are hearing of small business planning to close and others moving out of state should this bill pass.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: The January 2016 LFO reports an increase in income from taxes to the state as $13.5 million and shrink over time for a minimum wage of $13.50. Fruits says that $13.5 million comes at the expense of reduced wages and salary incomes by an estimated $6.2 billion, and by $6.9 billion for $15 per hour by the year 2020. A Kellogg professor built a model that "strongly suggests that everyone— employers, customers, employees who lose their jobs, and even those who stay—ends up in a worse situation when the minimum wage increases.”

The January 2016 LFO report indicates that all social programs will be affected to the detriment of low income people. The rise in unemployment and increase in homeless, which Oregon is 3rd in the nation for homelessness, will be significant to the state and taxpayers. This bill also establishes a Wage Enforcement Fund that is funded by a 'minimum wage tax' at the rate of $0.01 each hour worked by all employees.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT: “Oregon has the 10th highest rate of Unemployment among the states. In fact, Oregon has spent most of the past decade among the top 10 states with the highest rates of residents looking for work, but unable to get a job. A steep increase in the minimum wage will only worsen employment opportunities for Oregon job seekers.”

In 2015, BOLI reported 141,000 minimum wage workers. A third of these people will have their American Dream squashed by an over-zealous ignorant government.