Residents of Deschutes County have the highest incomes in Oregon, earning more than $87,000 a year per capita. That’s $16,000 more than the state average, according to federal figures.
Malheur County had the lowest per-capita income, bringing in about $44,000 a year — roughly half of what those living near Bend received.
Oregon Employment Department economist Molly Hendrickson collected 2024 income figures from all over the state for a report this month that shows wide disparities in income based on geography. The Portland area fares best in aggregate, while incomes in eastern and southern Oregon are considerably lower.
That’s not surprising given the economic gap between rural and urban Oregon. But Hendrickson’s report helps explain some of the underlying factors behind the disparities.
High incomes aren’t only the result of higher wages. Wealthy Oregonians also tend to have higher income from investments.
Bend and neighboring communities, for example, get more than a quarter of their income from investment income. That’s a higher share than anywhere else in the state and explains why residents in Deschutes County have Oregon’s highest incomes, even though they don’t have the state’s highest wages.
(Oregon’s highest wages, per capita, are in Washington County — $55,000 per year.)
People in Oregon’s poorest counties tend to rely on their wages for a higher share of their income because they’re less likely to have investments to help supplement their paychecks.
They’re also more reliant on government payments, like unemployment insurance and Social Security. Such payments are in a category of income economists call “transfer receipts.”
“The initial impulse is to presume that folks in some counties rely more heavily on government subsidies,” Hendrickson wrote in her new report. “However, the story behind the higher transfer receipts is one of age demographics.”
Oregon is the oldest state in the West and counties with older populations have more people in retirement, drawing pensions and Social Security.
Curry and Wheeler counties have some of the lowest per-capita incomes in Oregon, and some of the highest shares of these transfer payments. They’re also among the state’s oldest counties, with an average age of nearly 60.
“A higher share of retirees means a higher share of transfer receipts,” Hendrickson found.
This is Oregon Insight, The Oregonian’s weekly look at the numbers behind the state’s economy. View past installments here.
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