That's the question Oregon asked. What they ended up doing was a tiered minimum, based on regions and economic studies. In the Portland area, $15 is barely en

That's the question Oregon asked. What they ended up doing was a tiered minimum, based on regions and economic studies. In the Portland area, $15 is barely enough. Reasonable minimum target. This is true for various places along the I-5 corridor. Maybe Bend too. In other regions, it may be $12, or even $11, depending. Overall, it's reasonable and the expectation is increased demand will not impact the number of people having jobs much at all. I agree with you. What should be done is a baseline study every few years. Take some basic metrics: Housing Food Transportation Health Care (overlooked now, but should not be, or we do universal care to keep it factored out) Utilities, water, power, etc. Roll all that up into a "just making it" index of some sorts and work from there. My thoughts on this have arrived at a place where I do not see it being productive for labor to yield an income less than it actually does cost to exist and show up for work. When we do that, it's a subsidy, and we are all paying indirectly, and for some, very directly as those costs do accrue no matter what, and they get paid by someone no matter what, or people simply do not exist and or show up for work. Often, the more direct payments fall on family and others close to the person unable to labor and meet basic needs. This gets expensive. Retirement, and other bigger picture things are impacted, and because we do not see those outcomes present right away, they too get ignored. For all of us, taxes and such needed to fund services are indirect payments --subsidies essentially. In some cases, a subsidy makes sense. Happy to do my part. However, in a general sense, I really do not want to be subsidizing businesses that could operate just fine and pay labor what it costs to exist and show up for work.