Oregon’s Minimum Wage Jobs
June 12, 2025Oregon’s minimum wage increases on July 1, 2025 and the raises will not be the same across the state. The minimum wage increases to $16.30 per hour inside the Portland urban growth boundary, $14.05 per hour in nonurban counties, and $15.05 in other areas of the state.
Oregon’s three minimum wages will be among the top state-level minimum wages in the nation. The highest minimum wage in 2025 is in the District of Columbia ($17.95), followed by Washington ($16.66), California ($16.50), Connecticut ($16.35), and New York ($16.50).
Oregon’s minimum wage levels were set by Senate Bill 1532 in 2016, which established minimum wage increases on July 1st each year through 2022. There are three tiers of minimum wages based on geography.
Beginning in 2023, minimum wages in all tiers are adjusted annually for inflation. This means the minimum wage has maintained purchasing power after the last step increase in 2023. The “standard” minimum wage in Oregon is adjusted based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). The Portland urban growth boundary (UGB) minimum wage will be $1.25 over the standard minimum wage, and the minimum wage for nonurban counties will be $1 less than the standard minimum wage.
A Look Back at Minimum Wage Jobs in 2024
Between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, Oregon’s minimum wages were $15.95 per hour within the Portland urban growth boundary, $14.70 standard, and $13.70 in nonurban counties. Roughly 4.0% (89,800) of all jobs (2,229,100) paid minimum wage or less in Oregon in the third quarter of 2024. In addition, 1.9% (42,300) of all jobs paid between the 2024 and 2025 minimum wages. In total, around 132,100 jobs could be affected by the 2025 minimum wage increase.
Although the Portland UGB does not include all areas of Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties, the minimum wage jobs estimates for the Portland UGB include all jobs in those counties due to geography limitations of the Unemployment Insurance Wage Records data.
The share of jobs paying minimum wage ranged from a low of 1.7% in Sherman County (17 jobs) to a high of 8.9% in Wheeler County (37 jobs). Multnomah County had about 20,160 minimum wage jobs, the most of any county, which made up 3.8% of total jobs in the county.
Oregon’s metro and nonmetro counties had a similar share of minimum wage jobs – around 4.1% for metro counties and 4.0% for nonmetro counties. Deschutes County had the lowest percentage of jobs (2.9%) paying minimum wage among metro counties, followed by Yamhill County (3.3%). Josephine County had the highest share of jobs paying minimum wage among metro counties at 6.3%.
The concentration of minimum wage jobs varied greatly by industry. Not only did the leisure and hospitality industry have the most minimum wage jobs (23,700) in the third quarter of 2024, it also had the largest percentage of minimum wage jobs at 9.3%. Private educational services and retail trade had the next largest concentrations of minimum wage jobs at 7.5% and 7.4%, respectively. Retail trade also had the second highest number of minimum wage jobs with 17,200. State government had the lowest number (58) of minimum wage jobs, making up less than one percent of its total jobs. Wholesale trade (1.6%), manufacturing (1.5%), and construction (1.4%) all had less than two percent of total jobs earning minimum wage or less.
Minimum Wage Jobs in Oregon Over Time
Between 2000 and 2024, minimum wage jobs in Oregon have represented about 5.4% of total jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance. This reached a peak of between 7.4% and 7.3% in 2017 and 2018, with over 160,000 minimum wage jobs each of those two years. Since then, both the share and total number of minimum wage jobs in Oregon has been declining. Over the past three years, despite annual increases in the minimum wages across the state and increases in the total number of jobs, the number and share of minimum wage jobs has stayed steady.
See the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries website for the Oregon Minimum Wage Rate Summary.