Business
AgLife
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Thursday, February 17, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Oregon
jobless aid
payments
fell by 90%
in 2021
Despite fewer monthly
payments, worker
shortage persists
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon began 2021
paying out nearly $600 million each
month in unemployment assistance, pro-
viding aid to well over 200,000 people.
Monthly payments fell rapidly
through the year, though, as the economy
rebounded from the pandemic recession.
Aid then plunged off a cliff in September
when expanded federal benefi ts expired.
In December, the state paid just over
$60 million in benefi ts — only 10%
of what it paid at the start of 2021, and
only a little higher than benefi ts pay-
ments in the months
before the pandemic.
In addition to the
end of federal pandemic
assistance, last year’s
record decline in unem-
ployment aid refl ects
Krumenauer one of the strongest
labor markets in Oregon
history. The number of vacant jobs
exceeds the number of unemployed
workers.
The state added 107,000 jobs in
2021. That’s far above the prior one-
year record, which was 61,000.
And yet Oregon employers are still
hunting for workers, and state econ-
omists say Oregon won’t have recov-
ered all the jobs it lost to the pandemic
recession until next fall.
Expanded jobless assistance in 2020
and 2021 is one reason why, according
to Gail Krumenauer, economist with
the Oregon Employment Department.
Federal pandemic aid paid as much
as $600 extra a week in jobless bene-
fi ts in 2020, which meant that laid-off
workers at the bottom of the pay scale
were actually earning more than they
did when they were working.
“They were getting, on average, full
wage replacement,” Krumenauer said.
Meanwhile, just about everyone
received three rounds of stimulus pay-
ments during the pandemic, part of a
broad federal aid package that spared
many people from the pain of the
steepest, deepest economic downturn
in U.S. history.
“That did build up people’s sav-
ings,” Krumenauer said.
As a result, she said, some people
have a fi nancial buff er that’s letting
them take their time returning to work
and be choosy about which jobs they’ll
take.
The worker shortage has pushed up
wages as employers compete for labor
and seek to lure workers back. The
average private-sector job paid $31.76
an hour in December, according to
state data, up 15% since the pandemic
started.
People who might have worked two
jobs to make ends meet before the pan-
demic can now get by with one, Kru-
menauer said, which only makes the
labor market tighter.
“That’s a great condition for
workers to be in,” she said. “And it’s
more diffi cult for employers.”
There are many other reasons
Oregon employment hasn’t returned
to pre-pandemic levels. Child care
remains in especially short supply,
for example, and some prospective
workers continue to choose to stay
home because of COVID-19.
It’s not likely that Oregon’s job
growth in 2022 will match last year’s
torrid pace. And with so few workers
left on the unemployment rolls, Kru-
menauer said it’s getting harder to
match individual people to the skills
required for the jobs available.
Still, she said that as the omicron
spike in coronavirus cases fades and
Oregonians draw down their savings
from pandemic stimulus payments,
more workers will likely be drawn
back into the labor pool.
“It seems like if COVID can fi nally
get under control after this and some of
that cushion goes away,” Krumenauer
said, “then more people will start get-
ting back to work.”
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife/Contributed Photo, File
A proposal to add $1 million to a state fund that compensates farmers and ranchers who lose livestock to wolves drew criticism from conservation and animal
rights advocates at February 2022 legislative hearing.
Proposal to increase
spending on livestock
killed by wolves garners
opposing responses
By ALEX BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
S
ALEM — A proposal to
add $1 million to a state
fund that compensates
farmers and ranchers who’ve
lost livestock to wolves has
drawn criticism from
conservation and animal
rights advocates who
are asking legislators to
oppose it.
House Bill 4127 would
more than triple the
amount of money in the
Oregon Department of
Agriculture’s Wolf Dep-
redation Compensation
& Financial Assistance
Fund. The Oregon Cat-
tlemen’s Association,
Oregon Hunters Asso-
ciation, Oregon Sheep
Growers Association and
the Oregon Farm Bureau
sought the extra funding
on top of the $400,000
budgeted for the program
over the next two years.
The bill has only
Republican support, with
chief sponsors in Eastern
Oregon — Rep. Bobby
Levy, R-Echo; Rep. Mark
Owens, R-Crane; Rep. Greg
Smith, R-Heppner; Sen. Bill
Hansell, R-Athena; and Sen.
Lynn Findley, R-Vale.
Groups such as the Humane
Society of the United States, the
Oregon League of Conservation
Voters, the Sierra Club Oregon
Chapter and Oregon Wild say
ranchers are getting compen-
sated for cattle and sheep they
cannot prove were killed by
wolves, and that the program
needs to be reviewed before
more funding is awarded.
Haley Stewart, a program
manager for wildlife protection
at the Humane Society’s
Oregon chapter, testifi ed
at a legislative hearing on
Wednesday, Feb. 9, that
her group fears most of
the new funding would
go to claims for missing,
not killed, livestock.
Hansell
“Missing livestock
claims go unverifi ed,
and payments provide
an incentive to blame
wolves for losses that
most likely have other
causes,” she said.
Advocates, however,
Levy
say the increase is long
overdue, and that the
fund has not fully com-
pensated ranchers for
livestock lost to wolves.
Todd Nash, a rancher
in Wallowa County
and the president of the
Nash
Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association, said his
members are tired of absorbing
fi nancial losses from wolf
predation.
“The whole deal with wolves
coming back to Oregon was that
no one was to bear the burden,”
he said. “But it’s landed directly
on the shoulders of livestock
owners.”
Besides lost animals, Nash
said wolves hurt the herd. They
cause livestock to stick together
in open areas that have already
been grazed, and animals can
lose weight with conception
rates dropping, according to the
Agriculture Department.
Nash said the birth rate
among pregnant cows in his
herd dropped from 95% to 82%
when wolves were near.
At stake is the balance of
interests the fund aimed to
achieve when it was established
more than 10 years ago.
wolves had become more per-
manently established in Oregon
again.
In 2012, the state wildlife
agency joined the state Depart-
ment of Agriculture, livestock
owners and conservationists
to create the wolf compensa-
tion fund to help farmers and
ranchers pay for nonlethal
methods to keep wolves away
from livestock and to compen-
sate for livestock lost to wolves.
Several other states in the
West and the Great Lakes
region have created similar wolf
compensation funds, but they
require proof of wolf predation.
Oregon is the only state that
pays money for missing live-
stock that owners assume have
been killed.
The return of gray wolves
in Oregon
How the program works
The fi rst gray wolves to
return to Oregon wandered into
the eastern part of the state in
the late 1990s, more than 50
years after they had been eff ec-
tively hunted and pushed out
of the country. The numbers in
the western United States had
been steadily growing since
the wolves were added to the
endangered species list in 1974
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service had increased resources
to protect them.
In 2005, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife cre-
ated a conservation manage-
ment plan to ensure the survival
of wolves in the state. By 2009,
The state Fish and Wildlife
Department investigates live-
stock deaths when it’s clear that
a wolf was involved.
The agency investigated 73
deaths in 2020 and approved 31.
The owners received full pay-
ment, averaging about $1,000 to
$1,2000 per animal.
Offi cials in the 12 Eastern
Oregon counties that participate
in the wolf depredation fund
investigate reports of missing
livestock.
A county committee con-
siders evidence such as photos of
scat, pictures of wolf tracks and
footage from trail cameras to
See, Wolves/Page B6
Business fundraiser contributes to school district program
BELLA owner Beverly
Calder donated nearly
$6,300 to La Grande’s
Angel Fund
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — A fund-
raising program with a hazelnut
twist led by La Grande and
Baker City business owner
Beverly Calder is giving an
important La Grande School
District program a big boost.
Calder recently presented the
school district with a donation
of $6,299 for its Angel Fund.
All money from the Angel Fund
goes to the school district’s
Youth in Transition Program,
which assists La Grande School
District families that qualify
as homeless under the federal
McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act.
Calder, the owner of BELLA
mercantile shops in La Grande
and Baker City, raised money
for the Angel Fund and two
other causes during a holi-
day-season fundraiser at both
stores. She donated 10% of the
stores’ sales in December to
the Angel Fund, the Baker City
Quiet Zone and the Baker City
Relief Nursery.
Dick Mason/The Observer
Beverly Calder, center, with Wanda Allred, left, and Jose de Jesus Melendez
pose for a photo with a check to the La Grande School District’s Angel Fund
during a ceremony at Willow School — La Grande School District’s adminis-
trative offi ce building — on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. Calder donated $6,299 to
the La Grande School District’s Angel Fund, a major source of funding for its
Youth in Transition Program, which supports homeless and unaccompanied
students. Allred is the district’s Youth in Transition liaison, and Melendez is its
director of student success and engagement.
The Baker City Quiet Zone
seeks to reduce train whistles
and improve railroad cross-
ings, and the Baker City Relief
Nursery helps families with
young children.
The amount Calder donated
to each of the three causes was
determined by its customers.
For every $10 spent, a customer
was given a hazelnut or walnut
to put in a stocking labeled for
the charity. Each nut repre-
sented $1 for the organization.
A total of $17,597 was raised
by the BELLA stores for the
three causes.
“It was incredibly fun,”
Calder said. “The holidays
always are.”
Calder said she wanted to do
something enjoyable after the
diffi cult two years people have
experienced because of the
COVID-19 pandemic. She also
wanted to introduce her cus-
tomers to three organizations
that “we really believe in.”
Jose de Jesus Melendez, the
La Grande School District’s
director of student success,
said Calder’s donation is most
meaningful.
“It is such a blessing to
see that kind of a donation.
It means that we can do that
much more to help,” he said.
The Angel Fund is operated
by the school district, but all
of the money in it comes from
private donations. Money from
the fund is spent to help home-
less and unaccompanied stu-
dents in the Youth in Transition
Program pay school fees, assist
members of their families with
getting birth certifi cates and
purchase supplies for the prog-
am’s food pantry.
Melendez said a big plus of
the Angel Fund is that there
are no restrictions on how it
can be used, unlike state and
federal grants.
“Angel Fund money can be
used to help families in need in
any way possible,” Melendez
said, adding the ultimate
goal is to remove barriers so
that families can fully access
education.