Why are taxpayers paying Paulson's peanut vendors?
A reader writes:
You may want to revisit the "living wage" subsidy that the [Merritt] Paulson [owner of the Portland Beavers and Timbers] gets from the city. As you may recall, when Portland Family Entertainment originally brought back the Beavers and renovated PGE, the city thought all of the ticket takers, etc. should get a living wage, and so they subsidized all of the hourly wage earners. Well, this is still going on. Paulson pays his minions minimum wage and the City kicks in another $3 per hour (approximately).Several questions there.Why does this continue? Will it continue after the city kicks in millions more for this [new stadiums] boondoggle and Paulson has to hire more minions? With all of Little Lord Paulson's money, shouldn't we expect him to pay more than minimum wage?
| Posted at 4:59 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
Would you stop queestioning this wonderful idea of Paulson's? This means Randy will want it more.
The living wage thing is a payoff to Shiprack's husband to get his vote.
Posted by Steve | May 29, 2009 6:31 AM
With all of Little Lord Paulson's money, shouldn't we expect him to pay more than minimum wage?
Ok, Im not defending the toad here, but why should we expect him to pay more? They are pushing soda and popcorn, maybe taking tickets. Those are minimum wage jobs.
Posted by Jon | May 29, 2009 7:09 AM
The Paulsons didn't save up a billion dollars by giving more than the bare minimum to the the detritus of the world like peanut vendors and Portland.
Posted by James | May 29, 2009 7:15 AM
I was wondering about that and whether the deal was still in effect. If the city's directly subsidizing family-wage jobs, why not keep parks workers, homeless outreach workers, gang prevention staff and others on the payroll?
Posted by Sarah Ames | May 29, 2009 7:24 AM
And we need to look at the impact of of those low-wage jobs in a recession. Many these folks end up needing rent assistance, energy assistance, food stamps and emergency food boxes because there is not supplemental employment readily available. So we're paying in more than one way.
It would be ineteresting to chart the impact on social services in Portland from the bulk of jobs provided at PGE Park. Liek the folks who charted the impact on medicaid, food stamps etc. of WalMart employees.
Posted by Ms. Contrarian | May 29, 2009 10:29 AM
James, The Paulsons did not "Save up" a billion dollars. They extorted it from unwitting taxpayers and with a handful of bought-off politicians in schemes just like the one going on now.
Posted by Ranz | May 29, 2009 10:55 AM
The reason why the Paulsons are rich = they find suckers to finance their for-profit projects and employee salaries.
The reason why the City of Portland is constantly in financial trouble = they are the suckers.
The reason why voters keep electing the likes of Sam Adumbs and Randy Leonard = we are even bigger suckers.
Posted by Mike (the other one) | May 29, 2009 12:50 PM
Did the buffoon consultant include the city wage subsidy in the financials he crunched? Don't bet on it.
Posted by Bilbo | May 29, 2009 4:25 PM