Never enough! State that just raised minimum wage facing pressure to raise it again

By Eric Boehm, Watchdog.org

It took less than a day after Oregon’s governor signed one of the nation’s largest minimum wage hikes into law for activists to complain that it’s not enough – and to begin pushing for further wage mandates to be included on the state’s ballot in November.

The newly signed law will raise Oregon’s minimum wage from the current level of $9.25 per hour to $14.75 per hour in cities like Portland. Smaller cities will have a minimum wage of $13.50 and “rural areas” will have the minimum wage set at $12.50. The increases will be phased-in over the next six years, with the first increases taking effect in July.

In a statement, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said the phase-in approach provides “a path forward – so working families can catch up, and businesses have time to plan for the increase.”

Activists who pushed for the minimum wage increase don’t see a good reason to give families and businesses that sort of time.

Justin Norton-Kertson, campaign manager for Oregonians for 15, told KUTU-TV that the new law was “too low and too slow.”

Oregonians for 15 is pushing ahead with a plan to increase the statewide minimum wage to $15 per hour in three years. They hope to have that proposal on the ballot in November.

“It’s definitely a victory in its own right but, you know, it’s not what we’ve been fighting for,” Norton-Kertson said of the new state law. “Fifteen dollars an hour is really the bare minimum that a family needs without relying on government assistance.”

Since 2013, minimum wage increases have been approved by 18 states and the District of Columbia.

But, as the fight in Oregon shows, even states that have recently increased their minimum wages will not be immune from populist efforts to force businesses to pay higher wages. There are efforts underway in more than a dozen states to get minimum wage hikes onto the ballot in November or passed through state legislatures.

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