Human Kindness in 2010
The state of Oregon still has over 11% unemployment; not the highest rate any more. But that doesn’t really mean the state economy is looking up.
Oregon allowed its minimum wage to increase by $.45 an hour on January 1, 2009 to $8.40, with automatic adjustments based on adjustments to the consumer price index. Likewise, ballots 66 and 67 promise to pinch business in other ways. The problem with both together is that the vast majority of businesses in the state of Oregon are small. As with many small businesses, you often have the owners as managers who work off the clock. Instead of hiring more people, the owners put in 80 hour weeks instead of their normal 60 hours. It isn’t that business owners want to work longer hours – it is that the cost to do business in the state of Oregon is not in scale with the economics of sales in the state of Oregon. Oregon is a great state for good intentions, but has a history of poor implementations.
Unfortunately, when the national economy improves, it tends to improve at a much slower rate in the State of Oregon. What few positive indicators Ive seen in the tech business in the last 2-3 months will hardly make a difference, at least in early 2010.
2009 has taught me a few lessons in personal, human kindness. I can’t say if the current economic climate is something we deserve or not, but in the absence of a pocket full of cash, one free gift we can give other human beings is to default to kindness, politeness and mercy. There are no cost ways to make difficult times easier for those around us for weathering these difficult times.
