By Oregon U.S. Attorney, Oregon Dentist Faces Federal Charges for Stealing Nearly $8 Million in COVID-Relief Program Funds PORTLAND, Ore.—A federal criminal complaint was unsealed today charging an Oregon dentist with fraudulently converting to his personal use nearly $8 million in loans intended to help small businesses during the COVID-19 […]

By Josh Lehner, Oregon office of Economic Analysis, First, Kanhaiya Vaidya, the state demographer in our office, crunched some of the 2020 ACS microdata data for poverty rates by race and ethnicity. In a less diverse state we know the sample sizes can be small and the data noisy, even […]

How Employers Should Approach the Federal Vaccine Mandates that are Held Up in Courts By Amy Angel & Bruce Garrett Barran Liebman Law Firm In the past few months, we have covered the three major federal vaccine mandates that apply to employers locally and across the country: an OSHA ETS, […]

By Oregon Business & Industry, Oregon voters are frustrated. That is the overarching takeaway from a statewide voter survey conducted by DHM Research for the OBI Education & Research Foundation in October. Voters are worried about the economy and their own personal finances, are highly concerned about homelessness, see Portland […]

National Federation of Independent Business, The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, announced S.J.Res. 29, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the Biden Administration’s vaccine and testing mandate, as an NFIB Key Vote for the 117th Congress in a letter sent […]

By Christine M. Zinter Bullard Law NW law Firm A federal judge in Georgia placed a nationwide injunction on the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors. As noted in our previous alert, a federal judge in Kentucky enjoined the mandate in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio last week. The mandate, which […]

By Josh Lehner, Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Large metro areas led the recovery coming out of the Great Recession. Portland’s growth last decade was transformational. Among the 100 largest metros in the country, Portland ranked in the Top 10 for high-wage job growth, median household income gains, and increases […]

By Oregon US Attorney Press Release, A Portland man pleaded guilty today for perpetrating a scheme to steal funds intended to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eric Wade Lysne, 35, pleaded guilty to bank and wire fraud. According to court documents, in April 2020, Lysne devised and perpetrated […]

By Oregon Small Business Association, Oregonians are less likely to quit their jobs than workers in other states, according to Gusto, a payroll services firm that focuses on small- and medium-sized businesses. Nationally, the Bureau of Labor announced in September that 3 percent of employees had quit their job. In […]

By NFIB, Small business owners continue to struggle to increase their workforce with 29% of owners reporting labor quality as their top business problem in November, a 48-year record high. Ten percent of owners cited labor costs as their top problem, according to NFIB’s monthly jobs report. “Unfortunately, the tight […]