Abstract
This report uses data from the Current Population Survey’s Merged Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS-MORG) to estimate the incidence and impact of minimum wage violations across the state of Oregon from 2010 to 2020. These violation estimates are then compared to claims submitted to BOLI over the same period to begin to unpack how claims may differ from underlying violations. We find that significant numbers of violations of Oregon’s minimum wage ordinance are in fact going unreported. Oregonians on average lose $283 million to $405 million a year from being paid below the mandated minimum wage. While we estimate that an average of 88,000 to 128,000 workers a year are paid below the minimum wage in Oregon, BOLI received an average of just 443 minimum wage and/or overtime claims per year during the study period.