
A Living Wage
While the Portland Metro area will be at $14.75 per hour by July 1st, 2022 the areas that are considered to be the standard and non-urban counties have a much lower $13.50 and $12.50 per hour for the same time frame. What I find most concerning is that this might just be unconstitutional in section 20 of the Oregon Constitution it states under Equality of privileges and immunities of citizens in states that, "No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens." And as far as I know, that could make Oregon's law on the current minimum wage unconstitutional. Now, I have to give credit to my professor from PCC prof. Nicholas A Paine for highlighting this potential constitutional issue.
A good solution to this would be to make all of Oregon's Minimum wage the same as the Portland Metro area while temporarily subsidizing businesses in counties that were not already at the $14.75 per hour rate. This would resolve a possible constitutional crisis and give lower-income Oregonians that weren't in the three Portland Metro counties more disposable income that would, in turn, garner more business in the other areas instead of kneecapping any growth because of where you work in Oregon.
However, this is a temporary fix. Once we reach the demand again to increase the minimum wage we will encounter the same problems as we did back then. I would propose some method that would adequately increase the minimum wage without damaging future business prospects in the state. Whether this means tying it to inflation, production, or some combination of both, or an entirely different option is not the point. We need to have some metric tied to the minimum wage so working-class families will not be the last priority for Oregonians.