A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2021
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34,529.45 +64.81
BRIEFING
Costco brings back
food samples
Shoppers go to Costco
for the low prices, the se-
lection — and the food
samples.
The box-box chain’s
popular perk has been
gone for the past year,
due to COVID-19 precau-
tions, but it’s about to
make a comeback.
The retailer announced
it is “beginning a phased
return to full sampling” in
June, Costco chief finan-
cial officer Richard Galanti
said Thursday on an earn-
ings call.
Food samples will
return early in June at
about 170 Costco loca-
tions, before spreading to
the rest of the company’s
560 U.S. outlets by the
end of the month.
Costco members won’t
have to worry about a
free-for-all. Safety pre-
cautions will be in place,
“including the samples
being prepared be-
hind plexiglass, made in
smaller batches and dis-
tributed to customers one
at a time,” CNN reports.
Costco’s food court,
called “beloved … up-
scale microwave food” by
entertainment and cul-
ture news website Thrillist
in 2018, also will be back
more or less to pre-pan-
demic normal.
Stocks end the
month near peak
Stocks notched their
fourth straight monthly
advance as data signaling
prospects for a sustained
rebound of the world’s
largest economy out-
weighed inflation wor-
ries. Treasuries were little
changed.
The S&P 500 ended
the week near a record,
while the Russell 2000 of
small caps climbed for
an eighth consecutive
month — the longest
run since 1995. Traders
focused on the outlook
for higher spending that
could boost growth, even
after the personal con-
sumption expenditures
core-price gauge posted
its biggest increase in
two decades. The per-
ception that the latest
figures won’t be enough
to prompt any change in
tone or policy by Federal
Reserve officials has also
helped sentiment.
Southwest flips on
alcohol’s return
Southwest Airlines has
indefinitely suspended
alcohol sales on all flights
after a months long rise in
passenger disruptions.
The announcement is
a reversal of the compa-
ny’s announcement just
last week that it would
phase inflight alcohol
sales back in throughout
June and July. South-
west suspended the sale
of alcohol during the
COVID-19 pandemic to
promote social distancing
and minimize contact be-
tween flight attendants
and passengers.
This announcement
follows an executive of
the airline telling employ-
ees that the woman ac-
cused of punching a flight
attendant on a Sunday
flight had been banned
from the airline, according
to The Associated Press.
Southwest, other air-
lines and the Federal
Aviation Administration
have raised concerns
about the rising incidents
of passenger disruptions
this year. According to the
FAA, 2,500 cases of pas-
senger misconduct have
been reported since Jan.
1, including 1,900 cases of
noncompliance with fed-
eral mask mandates.
— Bulletin wire reports
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Oregon legislative staff unionize
Move is a first in the U.S. for lawmakers’ aides
Associated Press
Legislative employees within
Oregon’s Capitol will become
the first in the nation to union-
ize, after a 75-31 vote by staff
members on Friday, Oregon
Public Broadcasting reported.
The unionization, which has
been informally discussed for
years, means that 180 Capitol
aides will be joining Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electri-
cal Workers Local 89 and can
begin taking steps toward bar-
gaining with the Legislature on
a contract for the first time.
“We’re moving forward,” Tony
Ruiz, an organizer with Local
89, said after the vote. “This was
truly bipartisan support.”
Legislative aides help law-
makers with scheduling, keep-
ing track of bills and votes,
community relations, policy
work and serve as liaisons be-
tween state agencies. The hours
they work can be extended
beyond the typical 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. as floor sessions and
committee meetings can carry
on into the night.
Friday’s vote was not with-
out challenges. Oregon Pub-
lic Broadcasting reported that
legislative leadership chal-
lenged some of the ballots on
the grounds that certain staff
members don’t qualify to be
union members because they
hold supervisory or manage-
rial positions, or have “confi-
dential” duties.
The Oregon’s Employment
Relations Board read off the
ballots Friday morning and
noted that 30 votes were “im-
PORTLAND REAL ESTATE MARKET
Millennials use
creativity and
patience to buy
first homes
BY JANET EASTMAN • The Oregonian
A
ubrey MacMillan and Jared Johnson say they were lucky to find a three-
bedroom house they could afford in Portland’s scorching residential market.
But the first-time buyers in their 20s had more than good fortune shine on them.
They were disciplined in saving and steadfast in searching for a place that would
support them, their small business and their wish to start a family.
They made three solid offers and lost out,
sometimes to competitors paying over the ask-
ing price in cash and waiving the need for the
seller to make repairs.
They saw these defeats not as setbacks but as
more time to save for a bigger down payment
and to cover closing costs.
Johnson was temporarily unemployed in
2020, but they still held steady in saving what
they could.
They were lucky in some respects. They re-
ceived three stimulus checks that pumped up
their savings. Their federal student loan pay-
ments were paused and the interest rate was
dropped to zero by the CARES Act in March
2020. They funneled those monthly payments
into their savings.
And they qualified for a mortgage rate un-
der 3%, close to the historic low.
“The stars aligned,” said Johnson, 29. “Ulti-
mately, we bought for under asking price and
under our budget.”
MacMillan, 28, continued, “which afforded
us the opportunity to make the house our
own” with improvements.
Like many in their generation, the couple
have become part of the expected wave of mil-
lennials, born between 1981 and 1996, who
want to stop being renters.
Making it difficult to all buyers, especially
first-timers without a home to trade, is the ris-
ing cost of residential real estate and the num-
ber of Portland area homes for sale dropping
to the lowest level ever reported by the 30-year-
old Regional Multiple Listing Service .
The median sale price in Portland metro
jumped $12,000, about 2.5%, from $488,000 in
March to $500,000 in April, according to the
latest RMLS report.
Still, real estate broker Kim Parmon of Liv-
ing Room Realty told MacMillan and John-
son, as she does all her clients, that they could
succeed if they remained “strategic and cre-
ative.”
Parmon advised them to search online mar-
ketplaces like Zillow only for homes within
their budget and that met their criteria and
that had been for sale at least a week.
“Kim told us to look for a house that sur-
vived the weekend rush and didn’t already have
25 offers” so the sellers would be more inclined
to negotiate, said MacMillan.
The couple was comfortable not jumping
quickly. The lease on their rental home ran
through May, and it was the same price to ride
out the contract or break it. This gave them
flexibility instead of a hard move-out date.
Another benefit: A friend who was living
with them and paying toward rental expenses
was willing to move into the couple’s new
house in Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood
and contribute toward the mortgage.
“We didn’t have the most ideal circum-
stances to get a house, but we stretched in a lot
of areas and made it work,” MacMillan said, “It
was a lot of financial gymnastics.”
Real estate broker Sophia Rosenberg of the
Hasson Company Realtors said she uses differ-
ent levers to help her clients, who aren’t selling
an existing home, compete against people with
proceeds from a home sale.
First-timers can offer to pay the difference
between the sale price and the appraisal value
to satisfy the lender. They can forgo repair re-
quests, except for safety issues.
“Letting the other agent know that we aren’t
writing on multiple houses at the same time,”
is another way to distinguish a buyer, Rosen-
berg said.
“I’ve also started to offer to donate $1,500
to $2,000 of my commission to a nonprofit of
the seller’s choice after a successful closing,” she
said. “That definitely helps us stand out.”
See Homes / A6
pounded” on those grounds
and two others were void for
lack of a signature, bringing the
total vote count to 106.
The unionization goal has
also faced a fair share of oppo-
nents this session as well.
Department of Justice lawyer
Tessa Sugahara, representing
the Legislature, has repeatedly
argued an employee union is
“fundamentally incompatible”
with the work lawmakers do.
CEO pay rises
to $12.7M even
as pandemic
stunts economy
BY STAN CHOE
Associated Press
As COVID-19 ravaged the world last year,
CEOs’ big pay packages seemed to be under
as much threat as everything else.
Fortunately for those CEOs, many had
boards of directors willing to see the pan-
demic as an extraordinary event beyond
their control. Across the country, boards
made changes to the intricate formulas that
determine their CEOs’ pay — and other
moves — that helped make up for losses cre-
ated by the crisis.
As a result, pay packages rose yet again last
year for the CEOs of the biggest companies,
even though the pandemic sent the economy
to its worst quarter on record and slashed
corporate profits around the world. The me-
dian pay package for a CEO at an S&P 500
company hit $12.7 million in 2020, according
to data analyzed by Equilar for The Associ-
ated Press. That means half the CEOs in the
survey made more, and half made less. It’s
5% more than the median pay for that same
group of CEOs in 2019 and an acceleration
from the 4.1% climb in last year’s survey.
At Advance Auto Parts, CEO Tom Greco’s
pay for 2020 was in line to take a hit because
of a mountain of pandemic-related costs.
Extended sick-pay benefits and expenses for
hand sanitizer and other safety equipment
totaling $60 million dragged on two key
measurements that help set his performance
pay. But because the board’s compensation
committee saw these costs as extraordinary
and unanticipated, it excluded them from its
calculations. That helped Greco’s total com-
pensation rise 4.7% last year to $8.1 million.
At Carnival, the cruise operator gave stock
grants to executives, in part to encourage its
leaders to stick with the company as the pan-
demic forced it to halt sailings and furlough
workers. For CEO Arnold Donald’s 2020
compensation, those grants were valued at
$5.2 million, though their full value will ul-
timately depend on how the company per-
forms on carbon reductions and other mea-
sures in coming years. That helped Donald
receive total compensation valued at $13.3
million for the year, up 19% from a year ear-
lier, even as Carnival swung to a $10.2 billion
loss for the fiscal year.
Meanwhile, regular workers also saw
gains, but not at the same rate as their bosses.
And millions of others lost their jobs.
Wages and benefits for all workers outside
the government rose just 2.6% last year. That’s
according to U.S. government data that ig-
nore the effect of workers shifting between
different industries. It’s an important distinc-
tion because more lower-wage earners lost
their jobs as the economy shut down than
professionals who could work from home.
Last year’s 5% gain for median CEO pay
masks how much variation in pay there
was beneath the surface. Some companies
thrived as a direct result of the pandemic.
Sales boomed for Lowe’s amid a great nesting
across the country, and CEO Marvin Ellison’s
pay nearly doubled after its stock more than
doubled the S&P 500’s total return through
its fiscal year.
Other CEOs, meanwhile, saw their com-
pensation cut. At Duke Energy, the board
reduced CEO Lynn Good’s short-term per-
formance pay after its earnings per share fell
short of its initial target, partly because indus-
trial customers used less power during the
pandemic. Good’s pay dipped 2.6% to $14.3
million, even though earnings ended up
within the range Duke forecast for Wall Street
early in the year. Duke didn’t adjust formulas
to raise Good’s pay because of the pandemic.
Overall, 61% of the 342 CEOs in this year’s
survey did get a boost in compensation last
year. That’s almost the exact same percentage
as the 62% in 2019, when the economy and
corporate profits were growing.