The Minimum Wage Conversation Never Ends

By Steve Buckstein

Oregon and some other states mandate that their minimum wage increase every year with the Consumer Price Index. Based on that formula, it was announced earlier this month that Oregon’s minimum wage, the second highest in the country at $9.25 an hour, will stay unchanged in 2016.

That same evening during the Republican presidential debate, one candidate called for both a higher national minimum wage and for indexing it to inflation. He argued that this would mean “we never have to have this conversation again in the history of America.”

Well, if Oregon is any example, that’s not exactly true. Oregon began indexing its minimum wage in 2002. Yet, earlier this year, there were no fewer than twelve legislative bills introduced to raise the rate to as high as $15 per hour. Activists promised that if the legislature didn’t act, they would put a measure on the 2016 General Election ballot.

So clearly, putting minimum wage increases on autopilot won’t take this conversation off the table. Until legislators and voters understand that income cannot be generated by state mandate, minimum wage increases will continue to hurt the very workers they’re meant to help: the young, the less educated, and the less skilled. They are the ones who often can’t produce enough value for employers at higher wage rates to justify gaining or keeping a job.

Steve Buckstein is founder and Senior Policy Analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.