Does it seem like you are earning less but spending more than you were in 2007?  Take a look around---you are in good company.

Oregonians earned $15 billion less in 2009 than we reported earning just two years earlier, according to new data released this week by Oregon’s Department of Revenue.  Based on personal income tax filings for the 2007 and 2009 tax years, Oregonian’s adjusted gross incomes fell from a record $98.7 billion to $83.7 billion in the latest year for which information is available.

Among 1.8 million Oregon tax returns, residents on the Westside of the Portland metropolitan region continued to lead the state with annual income levels and tax contributions paid in the 2009 tax year.

Washington and Clackamas County residents finished the year in a statistical dead-heat, paying an average of $3,643 and $3,641 in personal income taxes respectively.  Clackamas County taxpayers narrowly edged their neighbors by reporting the highest gross incomes in the state, earning an average of $62,155 in 2009, compared to $61,983 in Washington County.  

In fourth place among Oregon taxpayers, residents of Multnomah County reported earnings of $53,250 and paid an average of $3,099. Surrounding Hood River, Columbia and Yamhill Counties were all in the top ten among Oregon counties.

Together, Oregon’s three largest counties accounted for 48.4 percent of the adjusted gross earning of the state and just over half (51 percent) of the personal income tax revenue collected by the Department of Revenue for the 2009 tax year.  Taxpayers living in Clark County, Washington, reported earnings of more than $2.2 billion from Oregon employers, and paid more than $126 million in Oregon income taxes in 2009, making them the eighth largest county contributing to Oregon state coffers.

Among Oregon’s 36 counties, rural Wheeler in north central Oregon reported the lowest incomes among its 566 taxpayers, averaging just $27,736 and a tax contribution of $1,326 in 2009.  In fact, all seven counties in eastern and southeastern Oregon reported incomes and tax contributions that were barely half the average earnings and tax contributions from the Portland metropolitan region.

Statewide the adjusted gross income of 2009 Oregon tax filers fell to $83.7 billion, down 7.1 percent from $90.1 billion reported the year before, and the lowest earnings seen in our state since 2005.  As a result, the 2009 tax liability for all filers also fell to $4.7 billion, down 7.2 percent from the $5.0 billion collected in 2008.

Among 29,854 newcomers to the state of Oregon, nearly 52 percent were attracted to live in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. Lane and Deschutes counties were the next most popular destinations.

In 2009, more than 26,000 Oregon taxpayers also left the state.  To no one’s surprise, the moves were our bordering states of Washington (24.5 percent) and California (18.1 percent), followed by Arizona (5.6 percent) and Idaho (4.1 percent). 

What is remarkable about these latest figures is that these trends have remained virtually unchanged—through good times and bad---over the past 10 years.  While the numbers of Oregonians abandoning our state have declined since 1999, their preferred destinations and the percentages of total out migration remain almost identical to all four western states.  

To learn more, see Westside’s economic and demographic indicators.