By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com
A new state economic report provides both good and bad news for Lincoln County, as well as four other northwest Oregon coastal counties.
The upside of the report, compiled by regional economist Erik Knoder of the Oregon Employment Department, is that average wages in Lincoln County increased nearly 50 percent from 2011 through 2021.
That figure topped increases of 48 percent in Tillamook County, 45 percent in Columbia County, 42 percent in Benton County and 40 percent in Clatsop County over the same span.
However, after adjusting for inflation, real wages were limited to a 24 percent increase in Lincoln County. Similarly, real wages over that 10-year period rose 23 percent in Tillamook County, 20 percent in Columbia County, 18 percent in Benton County and 16 percent in Clatsop County.
“All in all, these numbers are fairly typical for what we have seen over the past few years,” Knoder said. “And if I had to guess where they’ll stand a year from now, I’d estimate that all of these trends will pretty much continue.”
Inflation-adjusted wages for the state as a whole increased 23 percent from 2011 through 2021.
Knoder’s report went on to differentiate between wages – how much any person earns from their job – and per capita personal income. The latter category includes rental income, dividends, interest and transfer payments, which include money from sources such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits.
Measured that way, Lincoln County residents saw a 40 increase in per capita personal income from 2010 through 2020, the latest year available. After adjusting for inflation, the county’s figure fell to 18 percent.
Other highlights of Knoder’s report included:
- Although all five coastal counties had per capita incomes that were less than the statewide average, all of the counties except Benton had incomes that were closer to the statewide per capita income than their wages were to the statewide average wage.
- In what Knoder called the “reverse Lake Wobegon effect,” average wages in all five counties are now less than the statewide average wage. All of the counties also lost ground in comparison with the state from 2011 to 2021.
- Last year, only two counties – Multnomah and Washington – had average wages that were more than the statewide average. Currently, 34 of Oregon’s 36 counties are below average when measuring wages.
“I always remind people that Lincoln County is pretty typical for rural counties that don’t have the big employment drivers that large metro areas do,” Knoder said. “Compared to most of the state, Lincoln County is fairly comparable in terms of its economic performance.”
