This Common Sense Institute Oregon report examines how Oregon’s economic growth slowdown — GDP growth of just 1% in 2025, roughly half the national rate — translates into concrete losses in jobs, wages, and tax revenue. It finds that had Oregon simply kept pace with the national economy since 2022, its economy would be about $11.8 billion larger today, and that one additional percentage point of growth in 2025 alone would have meant nearly 12,000 more jobs and $879 million more in wages. The report projects growth scenarios through 2030, showing that a return to a 2–3% growth path could generate 12,000–25,000 additional jobs and over $2 billion in added wages, and traces the slowdown to manufacturing’s declining contribution and a narrowing, less diversified base of industries driving statewide growth.

Oregon’s domestic migration turned positive in 2024 for the first time since 2021, but the recovery masks a deeper problem: departing households consistently out-earn arrivals, costing the state a net $476 million in adjusted gross income. The income drain is concentrated among households earning over $200,000, who account for more than three-quarters of the loss, while Oregon gains households only in lower income brackets. With deaths outnumbering births since 2021 and a fertility rate among the nation’s lowest, migration remains the state’s only path to population growth — making the quality, not just the quantity, of migration flows Oregon’s central economic challenge.