The unemployment rate has bumped up to 5.9%!
The recent legislative session was one of the worst for small business in the history of the state. “Businesses are going to react to the environment that government creates,” Smith says. And they’re going to look for a way to succeed, even if that means cutting jobs or switching to automation, he says.
Our Democratic-controlled has just been doing an incredible job over the past year in achieving their apparent goal of reducing opportunities for employment. Small businesses form the backbone of the state economy, and Portland Democratics have worked hard to undermine them. Their work, however, is far from complete; they still need to pass a statewide minimum wage of at least $13.50 so that even more people can be pushed out of the job market and onto food stamps.
And their union friends are counting on hire business taxes as well, although it's interesting to see that in general, UFCW workers take home less money in their paychecks than [AACK! PFFFTH!] Walmart employees here.