Painting a False Picture. Oregon is Pretty Good At It.
I keep hearing that Oregon has steady job growth
and all the usual bull feathers about how everything’s fine in the
economy. Well, let’s look at the
facts.
Oregon’s unemployment rate went UP
last month to 8.5 percent…higher than the national average. We graduate about 40-thousand kids a year
from a student population of half a million. That means you need about 3-thousand jobs a month for the young men and
women added to the population because eventually all of them have to move out
of mom and dad’s house and start life.
Oregon added 1700 jobs last month which fills just half that need
without chipping away at the 170-thousand unemployed. Oregon has one of the highest unemployment
rates in America…one of the highest minimum wage rates…one of the highest
income tax rates and a high capital gains rate.
We have crazy land use rules and government regulation on steroids. Is it any wonder that the state’s real wage
growth has been virtually nonexistent for decades and that the state has been
losing major industry.
Nike is here for Phil, Columbia is here for Gert and the
jobs have been bleeding away for a long, long time.