As if people need another reason to move to Oregon, the state's economy became an economic dynamo in 2015, according to a new Bloomberg analysis.
"Oregon is the picture of economic health," the report states.
In fact, Oregon, the nation's 27th-largest state, had the best performing economy in the nation based on employment, home prices, personal income, tax revenue, mortgage delinquency and publicly traded equity of its companies during the first three quarters of the year, according to Bloomberg.
Here's how the financial website's Matthew A. Winkler views Oregon's economic progress:
By punching well above its weight in half a dozen comparisons that make up Bloomberg's Economic Evaluation of States, Oregon's economic health index rose the most through the first three quarters of 2015, according to the most recent Bloomberg data. The closest two rivals for No. 1, North Carolina and Michigan, were at least a full percentage point behind Oregon, failing to achieve the same consistency of improvement across the six business, financial and industrial values in the index.
Only California and Utah exceeded Oregon's 4.35 percent increase in personal income in the nine months ended Sept. 30. Colorado and Nevada alone matched the 9.12 percent increase in Oregon home prices. Oregon benefited from an 11 percent increase in tax revenues, better than 41 other states. Oregon created more jobs than 44 states, with employment growth of 2.73 percent. Mortgage delinquency fell 25 percent during the first three quarters of 2015, better than 45 states, according to Bloomberg data.
Gov. Kate Brown told the publication that she hopes the impressive growth continues as young innovators and entrepreneurs move to the fast-growing state of 4 million people for its high quality of life.
The analysis singled out several small and large firms for impressive performance, including StanCorp Financial Group and Puppet Labs. Unimpressive unemployment numbers have also proven to be more positive than they first appeared, the analysis shows.
What's more, Beaverton-based Nike had the top performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2015, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg concludes: "That's a snapshot of Oregon missing in the headlines from Burns."
-- Joseph Rose
503-221-8029
jrose@oregonian.com
@josephjrose