STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
A7
Gov. Brown: Reopening Oregon will ‘take longer than we want’
State joins California and
Washington in pact on
opening states’ economies
By Dick Hughes
For the Oregon Capital Bureau
Reopening of Oregon businesses
will occur “gradually, carefully and
incrementally,” Gov. Kate Brown
said Tuesday, but she refused to say
when that might happen.
“It will not be easy. It will take
longer than we want,” she said.
Brown and health officials held
a press conference to announce her
framework “for restarting business
and public life in our state — how
we’re going to approach reopen-
ing Oregon” from the COVID-19
pandemic.
“We have to be cautious or it will
backfire,” Brown said. “We know
that a vaccine or an effective treat-
ment may yet be months away. And
if we move too quickly, we will see
a spike in cases that could lead to an
overwhelmed hospital system and
unnecessary deaths.”
Businesspeople and health pro-
fessionals will be brought together
to discuss how to gradually reopen
restaurants, retailers, child care and
personal services such as hair and
nail salons.
“For example, this might include
additional guidelines for reconfig-
uring the delivery of services with
additional physical barriers like
plexiglass dividers, or requirements
for wearing PPE,” she said.
She promised “a science-driven
process” based on several conditions
for reopening Oregon: slowing the
growth of COVID-19 cases, having
more personal protective equipment,
increasing test capacity, establishing
a robust system for tracking who has
been exposed to the coronavirus and
ensuring effective isolation and quar-
antine for people who test positive,
including nursing home residents and
homeless individuals.
The state’s latest modeling esti-
mates that, under current conditions,
COVID-19 cases and hospitaliza-
tions would remain steady through
mid-May but would shoot up if those
regulations were eased. Responding
to questions, Brown would not spec-
ify a date for potentially relaxing
business restrictions and social dis-
tancing requirements.
Much has yet to be determined.
Brown said epidemiologists and her
recently formed Medical Advisory
Committee were working on the
appropriate metrics for evaluating
the state’s progress.
The state does not know how
much PPE is needed, including hav-
ing sufficient gear for physicians and
dentists to resume elective surgeries
and other procedures, or potentially
to protect employees in personal-ser-
vice jobs.
More testing capability also is
needed, enabling at least 15,000 Ore-
gonians a week to be tested, accord-
ing to Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state
health officer. Not all Oregonians
will be tested for COVID-19. And
contact tracing of Oregonians will
require a vast number of workers.
As of Tuesday, 32,363 people
had been tested in Oregon since Jan-
uary. The Oregon Health Author-
ity reported that 1,633 of those
had tested positive. Fifty-five have
died. The total number of Orego-
nians with COVID-19 is unknown
because many either were not tested
or received inaccurate results.
On Monday, Brown announced
Oregon is working with Washington
and California on when to reopen the
states’ economies.
“We are announcing that Califor-
nia, Oregon and Washington have
agreed to work together on a shared
approach for reopening our econo-
mies — one that identifies clear indi-
cators for communities to restart
public life and business,” the three
governors said in a statement issued
Monday afternoon.
The eventual lifting of social dis-
tancing and other interventions will
require systems for testing, track-
ing and isolating individuals with
COVID-19, according to Oregon
Gov. Kate Brown, California Gov.
Gavin Newsom and Washington
Gov. Jay Inslee.
They did not give a timeline.
“In Oregon, the Governor’s Med-
ical Advisory Panel will be involved
in reviewing the public health com-
ponents of decisions related to the
lifting of various social distanc-
ing orders,” Press Secretary Charles
Boyle said.
“While each state will have its
own specific plan, our office is coor-
dinating with the governor’s offices
in Washington and California to
develop common criteria for this
framework and a way for our health
departments to coordinate on an
ongoing basis.”
Boyle said that reopening Oregon
would happen neither overnight nor
statewide all at once.
“Health outcomes will be the ulti-
mate metric guiding decisions to
reopen communities,” he said. “We
will only reopen Oregon if the data
shows we can do so without jeopar-
dizing public health.”
Sen. Wyden calls for major overhaul of 1930s federal unemployment rules
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden says
the temporary expansion of
unemployment benefits to more
workers — a step he champi-
oned and which became part of
the $2 trillion federal response
to the COVID-19 coronavirus
pandemic — should be made
permanent.
As the top Democrat on the
Senate Finance Committee,
which oversees the unemploy-
ment insurance system, Wyden
negotiated not only a 13-week
extension and a $600-per-week
increase in benefits, he also
secured expansion of benefits
to self-employed, gig and part-
time workers, freelancers and
independent contractors.
Although some changes
have been made since the last
economic downturn, more
than a decade ago, the nation’s
unemployment insurance sys-
tem dates back to the 1930s.
Wisconsin created the first
state program in 1932, and the
Social Security Act of 1935
encouraged states to do so. All
did by 1937.
Back then, typical U.S.
wage earners were the men
in two-parent families — and
benefits replaced only part of
their lost wages until they could
get other full-time jobs.
Wyden, in an interview with
Pamplin Media Group, said
economic realities are different
more than 80 years later.
“The unemployment system
created in the 1930s has been in
a time warp. I insisted that all
of them (new worker catego-
ries) be covered, plus the $600
per week and the four months
of coverage,” Wyden said. “I
think this could be the founda-
tion of a more comprehensive
plan for unemployment insur-
ance reform when we defeat
this virus and we can go on
to looking at policy in a more
deliberate way.”
Wyden’s Oregon spokes-
man, Hank Stern, said the sen-
ator’s immediate focus is on
ensuring that unemployment
benefits get into the hands of
laid-off workers, no matter
their category. Colorado Sen.
Michael Bennet, formerly a
Democratic candidate for presi-
dent, also has proposed changes.
Eagle file photo
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, answers questions from Grant
County community members during a town hall Oct. 7 at Prairie
City School.
Almost 17 million unem-
ployment claims have been
filed nationally in the past three
weeks, and 169,000 claims in
Oregon the past two weeks.
The sheer volumes have tied up
state employment agencies —
states run the system under the
guidance of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor — and the back-
logs of claims are frustrating
laid-off workers. There are no
estimates available on the num-
ber of newly eligible workers.
Oregon’s unemployment
trust fund has about $5 bil-
lion available, according to the
Employment Department.
Change comes hard
The CARES (Coronavi-
rus Aid, Relief and Economic
Security) Act puts into effect
some of the same proposals that
Barack Obama offered in his
final budget as president in Jan-
uary 2016, a year before Don-
ald Trump succeeded him.
According to a statement
then by Obama’s top economic
advisers: “With the economy in
better shape today, it is a good
time to prepare for future con-
tingencies by making sure that
unemployment insurance —
one of our front-line defenses
for workers who lose their jobs
and a key automatic stabilizer
for our broader economy — is
more responsive to economic
conditions.”
But Republican congressio-
nal majorities took no action
then.
According to an analysis by
the National Employment Law
Project, one of three groups that
backed sweeping changes, only
30% of unemployed workers in
Oregon actually drew benefits
in 2016, slightly better than the
national average of 27%.
“The
workforce
has
changed and the nature of work
has changed, but our system has
not,” said Janet Bauer, policy
analyst for the Oregon Center
on Public Policy, which advo-
cates for low- and moderate-in-
come people. “Fewer workers
are covered by the regular pro-
gram now and that number has
been going down.
“We know about the prob-
lem. The CARES Act goes
in the direction we need to be
going so that workers who
have jobs today have protection
when they are out of work. It
provides the template for how
we can think about restructur-
ing the core of this program.”
Bauer said advocates of
change will have to come up
with alternatives to fund the
program, which now levies a
6% tax on the first $7,000 of
taxable wages of employees.
Even the temporary changes
Wyden secured had to survive
a showdown vote in the Sen-
ate — a fight that may fore-
shadow a future debate about
whether the changes should be
permanent.
Oregon did adopt some
changes after the 2007-10
recession, such as a recalcula-
tion of the wage base for unem-
ployment benefits and work-
share programs. The latter
allow the unemployment trust
fund to be tapped for work-
ers who are still employed, but
whose hours have been reduced
from the normal work week.
COVID-19 BUSINESS RELIEF HELP
Many financial Institutions and other lenders are offering
payment relief programs or emergency loans, including
SBA and USDA loan programs – Here are your local financial
institutions’ phone numbers and addresses:
Bank of Eastern Oregon
200 West Main
John Day, OR 97845
541-575-1862
Umpqua Bank
150 West Main
John Day, OR 97845
541-575-0257
US Bank
129 N Canyon Blvd
John Day, OR 97845
541-575-1530
Old West FCU
650 West Main
John Day, OR 97845
541-575-0264
S183433-1