Employers Prepare: Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave Premiums Start January 1st! By Nicole Elgin & Kyle Abraham By Barran Liebman LLP Oregon law firm On January 1, 2019, Washington will become the fifth state in the country with Paid Family and Medical Leave. This new program will allow employees […]

US Representative Kurt Schrader, Oregon US Congress, Legislation introduced by Congressman Kurt Schrader (OR-05) and Congressman Peter Welch (VT-At Large) to close a loophole in the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program that is reported to have cost the Medicaid program as much as $1 billion passed in the House this week […]

By Barran Liebman LLP Oregon law firm A recent judgment by the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon requires the owner of a courier service, Gerald Brazie, Jr., and three of his Portland-based companies (Senvoy LLC, Driver Resources LLC, and ZoAn Management Inc.) to pay their drivers $3,087,100 […]

Timothy A. Duy Director, Oregon Economic Forum Department of Economics, University of Oregon Below is the University of Oregon State of Oregon Economic Indicators for October 2018. The release date is December 6, 2018. Special thanks to our sponsor, KeyBank The Oregon Measure of Economic Activity rose to 0.83 in […]

By Oregon Small Business Association, More than 75 percent of the people renting homes in Portland through Airbnb, Vacasa and other online sites are doing so in violation of city regulations. Portland city auditors discovered that four of every five short-term rentals operate illegally, but the city hasn’t enforced the […]

By Oregon Small Business Association Federal officials shut down an Oregon man’s website that sold fake documents identity thieves could use to defraud innocent victims. Steven Simmons, who operated www.noveltyexcuses under the company name of Integrated Flight Solutions of Beaverton, agreed to permanently shut down his business as part of […]

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden  called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to classify text messaging as a telecommunications service. During its open meeting on Dec. 12, the FCC will vote on a proposed declaratory ruling classifying text messaging as an information service, which would permit telephone […]

By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis The strong economy is reaching all corners with employment rates and household incomes rising. One result is households are feeling pretty good right now. Balance sheets have been repaired. Debt, while rising, is in line with income gains, meaning there is no […]

by Timothy D. Carkin Senior Vice President Ferguson Wellman Oregon based Capitol Management Firm With a week subdued by a day of mourning, traders hoped market volatility would follow suit: it did not. In less than three trading sessions the S&P 500 traded down five percent, the Dow Jones Industrial […]

By NFIB, Small business job creation inched up in November, rising to a net addition of 0.19 workers per firm, according to NFIB’s monthly jobs report, released today. Sixteen percent of owners reported increasing employment an average of 2.9 workers per firm, unchanged from October, and 11 percent reported reducing […]