Oregon once had the nation’s highest minimum wage
By Khushboo Rathore/Oregon Journalism Project
Oregon has a rich history of supporting workers and their economic contributions. Here are five things to know about Oregon workers on the eve of their national holiday.
Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday in 1887.
Oddly, lawmakers selected the first Saturday in June. Four other states created the holiday later that year. Labor Day was signed into law as a federal holiday in 1894.
Oregon enacted the nation’s first minimum wage law.
In 1913, the bill passed the state Senate unanimously and drew only three nays in the House. It was designed to “protect the lives and health and morals of women and minor workers,” according to the Oregon Encyclopedia.
It took a quarter century of strikes and labor unrest before the Federal Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a federal minimum wage, established a 40-hour workweek, and mandated overtime pay.
Oregon also became the first state to use a tiered wage structure.
In 2016, Oregon created three minimum wages. The highest applied within the Portland urban growth boundary ($16.80 today), the lowest rate in rural areas ($14.55 today), and a middle tier ($15.55 today) for the rest of the state. New York has since adopted a geographical and business-size tiered system; New Jersey adopted tiers proportional to the type and size of the business.
Oregon’s top minimum wage is the country’s fifth highest.
Along with its tiered minimum wages rates, Oregon also boosted the state’s minimum wage in 2016 to the highest in the country. And unlike the federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, which hasn’t changed since 2009, Oregon’s minimum wage increases with inflation.
As of July 2026, only three states—California, Washington and Connecticut—and Washington, D.C., have a minimum wage higher than Oregon’s highest tier. Oregon’s lowest minimum wage ranks 18th highest in the nation.
Even so, minimum wage jobs cover only a fraction of the cost of living in Oregon.
Even so, a person depending solely on a minimum wage job in Oregon can on average cover only 46% to 65% of the cost of living, depending on where they live. In Malheur County, the state’s poorest, the $14.55 wage covers 65% of the cost of living for a one-person household, the highest percentage among Oregon counties, according to an Oregon Journalism Project analysis.
In all other counties, minimum wage workers are even worse off, the analysis shows.
“The struggles of Oregon families to make ends meet,” according to a new report by the Oregon Center for Public Policy, “are to a large extent a problem of wages being too low.”
This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit investigative newsroom for the state of Oregon. Learn more at oregonjournalismproject.org.