© 2024 | Jefferson Public Radio
Southern Oregon University
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6301 | 800.782.6191
a service of Southern Oregon University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Oregon's Minimum Wage Increases As Of July 1

Oregon's minimum wage goes up July 1 to $9.50 per hour in rural counties and $9.75 in the rest of the state.
Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries
Oregon's minimum wage goes up July 1 to $9.50 per hour in rural counties and $9.75 in the rest of the state.

Tens of thousands of Oregonians will get a raise Friday when the state's minimum wage goes up for the first time in 18 months.

The amount of the increase depends on where you work. The wage goes up 25 cents per hour in rural counties and 50 cents per hour everywhere else. Full-time minimum wage workers will see their paycheck go up $20 per week before taxes.

"It's okay because it will make a little difference, but we still need more of that,” said Kasil Kapriel, who works at Portland International Airport. She helps people in wheelchairs get to and from their flights.

Kapriel said she does get tips sometimes, but only enough to pay for her light rail ticket back home. Next year, Oregon moves to a three-tiered system which gives workers in the Portland metro area a higher rate than the rest of the state.

The minimum wage will automatically go up each July for the next six years. At that point it will return to the old system of being adjusted based on the Consumer Price Index.

The wage hike was narrowly approved by Oregon lawmakers in March as an attempt to head off a potential ballot measure that would have increased the minimum wage more rapidly. Business groups and Republicans in the legislature opposed the measure, which they say will cause small business to lay off employees.

Copyright 2016 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.