Business
& AGLIFE
The Observer & Baker City Herald
B
Thursday, November 3, 2022
H-2A
burdens
expected
to rise
Farmers who use foreign
guest workers face higher
costs, more paperwork
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Farmers who
rely on foreign guest workers
can only expect more red tape
from upcoming revisions to the
H-2A visa program, according
to agricultural labor experts.
The stricter demands and
increased costs may dissuade
farmers from using H-2A or
growing labor-intensive crops
altogether — ultimately mak-
ing the U.S. more dependent
on food imports, experts say.
“We’re shipping our pro-
duction off to our competi-
” said
“You get that tion,
Michael
kind of (wage) Marsh,
president
increase,
and CEO of
you might the National
of
be better off Council
Agricultural
leaving the Employers.
berries on the said Marsh
his or-
ganization
bush.”
is worried
—Michael
enough to
Marsh,
consider fil-
president and
ing a lawsuit
CEO of the
against the
National Council new regula-
of Agricultural
tions, which
Employers
become ef-
fective in
mid-November.
“We’re very concerned what
the outcomes are going to be
from this regulation,” he said.
Proposed revisions that
would have made the H-2A
program more workable were
not included in the final rule,
though it did have provisions
opposed by agricultural em-
ployers, said Kate Tynan, senior
vice president of the Northwest
Horticultural Council.
“We were fairly disap-
pointed,” she said. “Most of the
changes make the regulatory
and financial burden worse on
H-2A users.”
For example, the version
proposed by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor in 2019 would
have provided a more flexible
time frame for the arrival of
guest workers, she said.
Instead of choosing a spe-
cific date, growers would set a
two-week window for their ar-
rival, Tynan said. The provision
better reflected the vagaries of
weather, but it was scrapped
from the final version.
Similarly, the proposal would
have allowed farmers to submit
a single H-2A application for
groups of workers who arrive
at different times, she said.
This staggered entry provi-
sion was eliminated from the
final regulation, so a separate
time-consuming application
is required for each group of
workers, Tynan said.
Farmers must also continue
to hire domestic workers until
half the H-2A contract period
is over, whether they’re needed
or not, Tynan said. This period
would have been shortened to
30 days under the proposal.
“You’re still required to hire
whoever shows up in the mid-
dle of harvest,” she said.
The final rule also didn’t in-
clude a grace period that would
give farmers two weeks to ad-
just their payroll systems to
newly required wage rates.
Steep hikes in H-2A wages
may instantly render a crop
uneconomical to harvest, said
Marsh of the National Council
of Agricultural Employers.
“You get that kind of in-
crease, you might be better
off leaving the berries on the
bush,” he said.
Though the final regula-
tion approved by the Biden
administration is onerous for
farm employers, aspects of the
Trump administration’s pro-
posal were also troublesome,
Marsh said.
Dick Mason/The Observer, File
Rea� � �n �
Colleen McIntosh, owner of Peak Lifestyle Studio in downtown La Grande, gets ready to teach a fitness class on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. McIntosh said she’s always
intended for the space to be more than just a studio, but a place to bring the La Grande community together.
THE PEAK
Downtown La Grande studio introduces new Kona’s
Corner coffee, protein shakes to fuel members
BY SHANNON GOLDEN • For The Observer
L
A GRANDE — Peak Lifestyle Studio, with its fitness spaces,
upstairs salon and massage therapy studio, has found another
niche — one that aims to fuel its members as well as the
community.
The downtown La Grande studio’s
newest feature, Kona’s Corner, is a
small cafe tucked into a corner that
was once used for retail. Among the
many available beverages include lo-
cally sourced coffee and a range of
protein shakes and flavor options —
and even vegan offerings.
“Protein is a really important
macronutrient and really crucial
for building muscle and helping the
body recover after workouts,” owner
and instructor Colleen McIntosh
said. “That’s really what we want to
introduce more people to.”
The studio — one of the newer
mainstays on Adams Avenue —
opened its doors in September 2019.
McIntosh said she’s always in-
tended for the space to be more than
just a studio, but a place to bring the
La Grande community together.
“I knew that, yes, group fitness
was going to be important, but that
we’d have more to offer the women
in our community,” she said.
The newest addition to Peak’s of-
ferings is not simply a place to re-
charge, it’s also a loving nod to the
studio’s late four-legged mascot —
Kona.
A lifelong bond
McIntosh was a veterinary tech-
nician for more than 12 years before
opening Peak Lifestyle Studio. Her
passion for animals extended into
her own home, with her Rottwei-
ler, Labrador retriever and German
shepherd mix named Kona.
“She was my ride or die, she was
there every step of the way, every job,
every hardship,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh said that as Peak Life-
style Studio took shape, Kona was
there throughout the process. Once
construction was completed on the
studio, Kona joined McIntosh at the
studio every day, greeting members
Colleen McIntosh’s dog Kona lies on her yoga mat at Peak Lifestyle Stu-
dio. Kona spent hours at the studio with McIntosh before she passed in
2020. The studio’s new coffee and protein shake cafe, which opened in
2022, is named in her honor.
Colleen McIntosh/Contributed Photo
See Peak / B6
Oregon’s poverty gap shrank during pandemic
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — Even as COVID-19 up-
ended Oregon’s economy and uprooted
thousands of lives, the poverty gap be-
tween white and nonwhite Oregonians
narrowed to the lowest point on record.
About 15% of Oregonians who didn’t
identify as white were below the poverty
line last fall, according to data published
this fall by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s
just 3.6 percentage points higher than
white Oregonians.
That gap was nearly four times greater
a decade ago, in the aftermath of the
Great Recession. And notably, the gap
continued to close in 2020 and 2021
despite upheaval associated with the
pandemic and the steepest, deepest eco-
nomic downturn in Oregon history.
“The pandemic was an equal-oppor-
tunity disaster. And in a lot of ways our
traditional disparities, they either didn’t
widen or they got smaller,” said Josh Leh-
ner, of the Oregon Office of Economic
Analysis, who wrote about the new cen-
sus data.
Most striking is what happened to
disparities in poverty rates over the past
decade. The share of white Oregonians
below the federal poverty line has re-
mained relatively steady since the 1970s,
typically ranging between 11% and 13%.
For nonwhite Oregonians, though, the
share below the poverty line was con-
sistently above 20% for decades, hitting
a peak of 27.1% in 2011. That reflects
historic inequities that have plagued the
state for generations.
The poverty rate for nonwhite Ore-
gonians began a historic decline as the
Great Recession faded, though, drop-
ping below 20% in 2017 and continuing
to fall.
“It was all about the economy and the
rising labor market,” Lehner said. Unem-
ployment fell to a historic low and wages
rose. That benefitted all groups, but es-
pecially those who had been living on
the margins.
“If you’re anywhere near the poverty
line, you’re really struggling to put food
on the table and paying rent,” Lehner
said.
The federal poverty line, set nation-
ally without accounting for higher cost
of living in states like Oregon, changes
annually. For 2022, it was annual income
of $13,590 for a single person, or $27,750
for a family of four. That represents ex-
treme poverty. Many people above that
line are barely getting by.
“If you’re just technically a few thou-
sand dollars above the poverty line it’s
not like you’re living the high life,” Leh-
ner said. “There’s still a lot of people
struggling.”
Oregon’s jobless rate soared to a re-
cord high of 13.3% in the pandemic’s
first month as government mandates
shut down restaurants, theaters and
gyms and many businesses laid off work-
ers in anticipation of an economic ca-
tastrophe.
Federal bailouts kept many businesses
afloat while expanded jobless benefits
and stimulus payments cushioned the
blow for workers. Oregon’s poverty rate
actually fell during 2020, from 10.2% to
9.8%, and people across the spectrum of
racial and ethnic groups benefited.
Oregon’s poverty rate climbed last year
to 11.2%, the highest point since 2017, as
pandemic relief programs expired. But
the gap between white and nonwhite Or-
egonians continued to close.
Big gaps remain in overall income.
Historically, for example, Black Orego-
nians have earned far less than the me-
dian household.
Nationally, the median Black house-
hold earned 62% of what white house-
holds earned last year. Hispanic house-
holds earned 74% as much as white
households.
Inflation remains stubbornly high,
and rising prices tend to be hardest on
those with the least, because they spend
more of their income on daily necessities
like rent, gas and food.