$15 Now Campaigners Are Hanging Up Their Ballot Effort

"$15 Now" has become "$14.75 in 2022."

A legislative short session that focused, partly, on pre-empting looming ballot measures officially claimed its latest victim today, when campaigners with the group 15 Now Oregon announced they're suspending a ballot initiative that would have put a $15 statewide minimum wage on the November ballot.

Advocates in the group said last week they were taking the pulse of supporters, now that Gov. Kate Brown has signed a bill that will raise Oregon's $9.25 minimum wage at three different rates in coming years, depending on geographic region.

"Due to a significant decline in organizational and voter support since the passage of this bill, the Oregonians for 15 coalition has regretfully suspended signature gathering and will withdraw its $15 statewide ballot initiative," the campaign said in a press release. It went on to cite a recent poll by Oregon Public Broadcasting that suggests support for the $15 wage had crumbled to less than 30 percent of likely voters.

"While our coalition, Oregonians for 15, steadfastly maintains that the newly enacted minimum wage is too low and too slow, we also have to recognize the fact that organizational as well as voter support for the $15 ballot measure has significantly diminished," the release says.

Under the wage bill passed by the legislature during the recently completed "short session," the state will be separated into three districts. The most rural areas will see the minimum wage rise to $12.50 by 2022. Much of the rest of the state will rise to $13.50. In the Portland area, it'll be $14.75. Those wages will be indexed to inflation.

The announcement by 15 Now Oregon marks the third ballot measure push that the legislative session put an end to. A separate, labor-backed push for a $13.50 statewide wage pulled the plug last week. And a ballot measure that would have forced power companies to stop giving Oregonians coal-fired power, and make them ramp up renewable energy, was rendered obsolete when a very similar bill made it through the legislative gauntlet.

By the way, the first raise for all you minimum wage workers out there is four months away. It'll be a 50-cent bump, up to $9.75. It rises by $1.50 a year later. Here's the schedule for Portland wage increases laid out in the new law.

•From July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, $9.75.

•From July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, $11.25.

•From July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019, $12.

•From July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, $12.50.

•From July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, $13.25.

•From July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, $14.

•From July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, $14.75