FAIR WAGES FOR OREGONIANS

A growing body of evidence suggests that much of today’s cost-of-living pressure cannot be explained by inflation alone. In many sectors, corporate profits have reached historic highs while wage growth has lagged behind housing, food, and healthcare costs. The disconnect between productivity, profitability, and worker compensation has become a defining economic tension of this era.

This framework begins from a simple premise: long-term economic stability depends on wages that reflect the real cost of living. When full-time work no longer guarantees basic security, the system itself warrants re-examination.

One proposed benchmark that has emerged in public discourse is a $25 hourly wage statewide — not as a political slogan, but as a reference point grounded in contemporary living costs. Framed this way, the concept is less about disruption and more about economic alignment: ensuring that the people who sustain Oregon’s economy are able to meaningfully participate in it.

Higher wage floors have the potential to reduce reliance on public assistance, increase consumer spending in local economies, and strengthen small businesses by stabilizing the workforce. Importantly, any serious consideration of wage recalibration must account for business scale and capacity. Phased implementation models, revenue-based thresholds, and transition supports are frequently cited as mechanisms to ensure that small and locally owned businesses are not disproportionately harmed during adjustment periods.

Wage policy does not exist in isolation. Its effectiveness is closely tied to broader systems — healthcare access, childcare availability, housing supply, and job creation pathways. Addressing compensation without addressing these structural pressures risks short-term relief rather than durable improvement.

At its core, this approach reflects a values-based economic principle: work should provide dignity, stability, and a reasonable path to security. When that expectation erodes, the consequences ripple outward — into public health, education outcomes, and community resilience.

An economy that honors work is not defined by rhetoric or mandates, but by structures that allow prosperity to be earned, sustained, and shared over time.