Update: December 20, 2011

It's Business as Usual If You Ignore Income Inequality and Poverty

The latest iteration of the Oregon Business Plan prepared for the 2011 Leadership Summit, a gathering of Oregon business and political leaders, is remarkable for what it leaves out. Put together by the Oregon Business Council, this "policy playbook" not once mentions income inequality or poverty, even as it purports to discuss Oregon's "economic progress and challenges."

Prior summit roadmaps have also ignored the inequities of our economic system, but this year the environment is different. The document reads as if the Oregon Business Council failed to notice Occupy Portland's encampments in the heart of Portland's business district. Why does the Oregon Business Council find it so difficult to acknowledge the extent to which economic gains of the past few decades have gone to a relative few and left Oregon with more poor?

Read the rest of this month's CenterPoints column, It's Business as Usual If You Ignore Income Inequality and Poverty

Happy Holidays!

OCPP wishes you and your family a happy and safe holiday season.