Associated Oregon Industries Oregon’s largest business advocate In the ongoing battle over the paid sick leave mandate (SB 454 and HB 2005), a new plan has surfaced in the Senate. Although a bill draft has not been made available yet, the Senate’s intention is that the bill would apply to […]

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mark Warner, D-Va.,  introduced legislation that would provide college-bound students powerful new tools for comparing colleges and universities on measures such as total cost, likelihood of graduating, and potential earnings. “The Student Right to Know Before You […]

Business News Note: Released this weekend for over $100 Adidas has teamed up with Blazer star Damian Lillard for a new show based ont he design of the replaced Portland Airport carpet. From Addidas, “Ready for take off. The PDX Carpet inspired edition of the D Lillard 1 basketball shoe […]

By NFIB, Democrats and Republicans are coming together on a repeal of perhaps the unlikeliest of matters: a portion of the Affordable Care Act. The repeal centers around a 40 percent tax set to go in effect in 2018. The tax is often referred to as the “Cadillac tax” because […]

By Oregon Tax News, Portland is one of the rare cities that is experiencing a future test of technology while navigating through various legislative and legal hurdles. This month, CenturyLink has launched a cable TV service in Portland, giving Portland viewers an alternative to Comcast for the first time. The […]

Associated Oregon Industries Oregon’s largest business advocate Here are the tax-related bills that have the attention of AOI and the business community: HB 3125 extends the machinery and equipment (M&E) personal property tax exemption for bakeries, egg producers, and dairy producers. The bill is sponsored and being pushed by the […]

Shawn Narancich, CFA, VP Research Ferguson Wellman, Portland Investors unnerved by disappointing economic data of late breathed a sigh of relief with the April jobs report, which showed that nonfarm payrolls rebounded to a monthly rate of 223,000 last month. Unemployment dropped again and now stands at 5.4 percent, a […]

By Taxpayer Foundation of Oregon Oregon Congressman Earl Blumeneaur was featured on one of the nation’s most watched programs, 60 Minutes, over infrastructure funding for funding of our bridges, roads and rails. The show revives the debate over funding (which can be a complex topic: gas tax changes, per-mile taxes, […]

By Dr. Eric Fruits, Econ Minute Firms often use referrals from existing employees to hire new workers. About 50 percent of US jobs are found through informal referral networks and about 70 percent of firms have programs encouraging referral-based hiring. One can argue that the social networking site LinkedIn is mostly a referral-based job board […]

By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Blog So far in early 2015, the U.S. economic data flow has been relatively lackluster, including the disappointing March jobs report. As such, now is a good time to take a step back and mark one’s economic beliefs to market, to borrow […]