BEND, OR -- Committees from both the State House and Senate held a joint meeting Monday night to consider a handfull of bills that aim to raise the minimum wage. Currently the state minimum wage is $9.25 an hour. Lawmakers are looking at several bills that could raise that rate to as high as $15 an hour by 2018.
House Speaker Tina Kotek was the first to share her thoughts, Monday night. "Because right now there are 150,000 workers who make minimum wage that is $18,925 a year. We all know that's not nearly enough to save for our retirement or for the future of our children." Kotek said statistics show that the average minimum wge worker is 35 years old and 4 out of 10 are the sole bread winners of their families.
The head of Economic Development for Central Oregon, Roger Lee, feels any jump in the minimum wage would hurt the state's economic growth. "The way to better economic prosperity is increasing the skill levels and quality of the type of workers and not just teling employers they have to pay a different wage." Lee believes that tourism and other service industries would be hard hit by the increased costs of raising the minimum wage.
He says in Deschutes County, 40% of the jobs pay less than $15 an hour and increasing the minimum wage would have a negative impact on many of the region's industries.
