$15 Minimum Wage? More May Turn Out to Be Less

By Kathryn Hickok

Last summer, Seattle passed an ordinance raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour. A Portland-area restaurant owner recently explained in The Oregonian how a $15-per-hour minimum wage here would spell lower total wages and less opportunity for his employees.

Lee Spectator wrote: “I start most of my new hires at minimum wage, then, based on their performance, give them a raise within their first 30 to 60 days. I give merit raises based on performance [and] annual performance reviews….With a $15 per hour minimum wage, that would go away. I would have no room to pay them any more, and they would have no incentive to work harder.”

With increased wage expenses also come higher taxes and workers-comp insurance. These would balloon to nearly 48 percent of Spectator’s total business expenses, he says.

So, what would be the likely result if Portland raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour? To start, fewer jobs will be available in small businesses that pay hourly. Fewer employers will want to hire low-skilled workers like teenagers, since they will need more productive and experienced workers to justify paying them a higher wage. Entry-level workers should have the chance to climb the ranks and achieve higher earnings as a consequence of their hard work, not to be stuck at one uniform pay grade or else have no job at all.

Kathryn Hickok is Publications Director and Director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund-Portland program at Cascade Policy Institute.