Oregon Sees Productivity Growth

In case you missed it, the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis performs some great research and provides helpful commentary through its blog. This week, their fair-minded economist, Josh Lehner, presented new productivity data.

Perhaps you’d never know this from sitting in the drive-through line at McDonalds, but Oregon has steadily increased the amount of economic activity per hour of work. This is kind of a big deal, because it’s almost the be all and end all of economic growth.

Consequently, we’ve seen an average increase in personal income.

But that’s an average. Inflation is eating away at some workers’ nominal wage gains more than others. Yet, growing productivity is always good news, about the most Pareto Optimal trend one can hope for.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.