Seeking a Minimum Wage Hike & Food Labeling

Seeking a Minimum Wage Hike & Food Labeling

Seeking a Minimum Wage Hike & Food Labeling. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The Raise the Wage Coalition is pushing to raise Oregon's minimum wage to $13.50 an hour. The group is made up of businesses, workers and other organizations who say the $13.50 is not enough for families in the state's urban areas and call it a baseline "self-sufficiency" wage for most of Oregon’s counties. Opponents, of course, worry that raising the wage will hurt small businesses and drive up the cost of products. You’ll be using a lot more of Raise the Wage over the next year as they try to raise more support for the issue before bringing it to the state legislature in February.

The full U.S. House took up the the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, which would provide clarity and uniformity for the labeling of food products containing genetically engineered plants or ingredients, seeking to eliminate confusion among consumers. Congressman Dan Newhouse.

NEWHOUSE: The House Resolution 1599 just passed off the floor of the House. It moves on to the Senate by a fairly wide margin. What that does is it sets up a voluntary program for labeling of genetically modified foods or bio-engineered foods which I think gives the consumer tremendous amount of information that people have made clear that they want. It sets up a voluntary system that will keep costs of implementing this low and so think this is a great first step.

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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