New law has surprising twists for small businesses.
Oregon Business Owners Might Soon Need a Map to Calculate Wages
The location of your business
will soon determine what you pay your workers.
With less than a month before
Oregon’s controversial minimum wage takes effect, new rules from the
Bureau of Labor and Industries threaten to make the law even more burdensome to small
businesses.
The minimum wage law breaks the
state up into three different regions, and each region will rise to a different
wage level by 2022 based on its ranking on the Self-Sufficiency Standard, said NFIB/Oregon State Director Anthony Smith.
The areas with the lowest cost of living according to this metric will see a
minimum wage of $12.50 by 2022, the middle tier will rise to $13.50, and cities
within the Portland urban growth boundary will see a $14.75 minimum wage in
seven years. The current minimum wage is $9.25.
But for now, businesses will
see only a modest increase come July 1. Region 1—the cities that rank lowest on
the Self-Sufficiency standard—will see a 25 cent increase to $9.50. Regions 2
and 3 will see their minimum wages increase to $9.75.
It’s important for business
owners to know which region their business resides in, Smith said. The law gets
a little trickier for business owners who operate in multiple regions, which
means it’s critical for business owners to prepare for the change.
According to rules proposed by
the Bureau of Labor and Industries, workers who spend four hours or more per
week in a different region than where their employers are located would be
entitled to the minimum wage of that region. Many small business owners have
submitted public comments to the agency opposing this rule because it will add
onerous costs and unnecessary paperwork to their workload.
“It creates confusion in an
already complicated system,” Smith said.
To make the situation more
frustrating for business owners, the bill legislators approved stated that
workers would be paid at the rate of their home base, or where the business is
located.
“That’s how it was sold to the
public,” Smith said. “None of these proposed rules were in the bill.”
Business owners who are not
sure whether they are in compliance with the new minimum wage law can contact NFIB, and they can also find resources at the Bureau of
Labor and Industries website, Smith said.
