By SAM STITES/Oregon Capital Bureau
A team of Oregon’s top government and business leaders are looking at every state program and agency to confront the economic erosion created by the outbreak of COVID-19.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kate Brown convened her 28-member Coronavirus Economic Advisory Council that comprises the heads of state agencies, executives of Oregon’s major business groups, leaders of labor unions and local government organizations.
The council’s purpose charge is to identify ways to mitigate factors adversely affecting Oregon’s economy. Of particular interest is how a four-week suspension of all gatherings of more than 25 people, as well as a ban of on-site consumption of food and beverage at restaurants, bars and other establishments will affect businesses and workers across many sectors.
The council will work with the Special Joint Committee on Coronavirus Response that met for the first time on Wednesday.
“There was consensus that protecting public health is the primary objective in the middle of this thing,” said Christian Gaston, co-chair of the council and workforce policy adviser to Brown. “After we’ve taken those necessary measures, anything we can do to get cash into the hands of affected workers and affected businesses is probably the number one priority.”
According to Gaston, the council is turning over every stone and searching every couch cushion for dollars to help businesses and employees facing hardship, but Oregon’s only mechanism for relief is using its own revenue system. In contract, the federal government can borrow and got into debt to fuel national economic measures to stabilize Americans’ personal finances.
Gaston said the importance of the federal stimulus package being developed by the Trump administration and Congress can’t be overstated.
“We are working through every state program where we can to provide flexibility to people, but that stimulus is really the role we’re hoping the federal government will play,” he said.
Sandra McDonough, executive director of Oregon Business and Industry, echoed Gaston’s comments. She told the Coronavirus Response Committee that infusing cash into Oregon’s businesses is a high priority. She shared two anecdotes of companies losing thousands of dollars in revenue. One was a Portland-area event space that lost $42,000 in revenue after having to cancel all events in the coming four weeks. Another was a firm that provides security for events that lost out on $106,000 in revenue in just a few days.
“These companies across Oregon are experiencing severe cash flow issues,” she said. “Particularly with small businesses, you don’t typically tend to have a lot of cash on hand, so if your monthly revenue dries up, you’re in a world of hurt.”
The council is considering several steps to help Oregonians but hasn’t yet recommended specific actions. The possibilities range from helping cover rent, ensuring child care and food aren’t threatened and ensuring health care is available to low-income Oregonians.
Gaston said that capitalizing on use of the state’s unemployment fund to pay out a large number of claims will be crucial to providing relief for those laid off and temporarily out of work.
The Oregonian reported Wednesday that new unemployment claims in Oregon jumped by nearly 3,200 percent Tuesday amid wholesale layoffs triggered by the coronavirus outbreak.
An Oregon business leader also predicted the state’s unemployment rate could rise as high as 20 percent in the coming months as the economic catastrophe deepens, a rate that implies nearly 500,000 people would be looking for work. State economists say a recession is all but certain.
Wednesday’s numbers from the Oregon Employment Department are the first hard data on the depth of the state’s economic crisis. On Tuesday alone, 18,500 people filed jobless claims – up from an average of 570 new claims a day in the preceding four weeks.
A state Employment Department spokesperson said Wednesday they weren’t sure of the exact dollar amount of that fund, but the agency believes there’s a healthy cushion to absorb the increase number of unemployment claims being submitted.
Gaston wants Oregonians to understand there will be no one solution to the economic problems. The needs of rural Oregonians are very different than those of workers in the Portland metro area.
The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media, Pamplin Media Group and the Salem Reporter, providing state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com