--- title: This Outdoorsy Hipster State Has the Country's Healthiest Economy description: Using a wide range of criteria, a new study determined that Oregon is the state with the healthiest economy in the country. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2016-02-11T13:00:24.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:55:48.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Beer - Economy - Hipsters - home sales - Jobs - Pot - recreational marijuana word_count: 247 canonical: https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Biking over a bridge in Portland, OR](https://img.money.com/2016/02/161002_em_hipstercity.jpg) *Portland, Oregon* At first glance, Oregon may look like a state of impractical, out-of-touch extremes, with the hipster, politically correct sensibility of "Portlandia" at one end, and the [ultra right-wing standoff](https://time.com/4206631/how-conservationists-could-have-prevented-the-oregon-standoff/) at Malheur Wildlife Refuge on the other. Neither of these extremes gives the impression that Oregon has a good handle on the nitty-gritty of business. Yet somewhere in there, the state has become "the best-performing economy in the nation," according to Bloomberg's Economic Evaluation of States, which incorporates data about employment, personal income, home prices, mortgage delinquency, and more. For instance, personal income in the state was up 4.35% for the nine months ending on Sep. 30, 2015, while Oregon home prices rose more than 9% during the same period. In both cases, Oregon was among the top three states in the country. Oregon has even been a great place for investors, ranking among the top five states in terms of equity growth for companies based there. (It also landed a Top 10 spot on Money's annual list of the country's [Best Places to Live](https://money.com/collection-post/sherwood-oregon-best-places-to-live-2015/).) By no small coincidence, recently two moving companies separately named Oregon as the [top relocation destination](http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2016/01/2_studies_find_that_oregon_is.html) in the country, with 64% to 69% of moves involving the state heading in the inbound (as opposed to outbound) direction. Perhaps also no coincidence: Portland is widely regarded as [America's best beer city](http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/americas-best-beer-cities/20), and Oregon is second in the nation in terms of [most craft breweries per capita](https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/by-state/?state=OR). Meanwhile, Oregon recently made recreational marijuana sales legal. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Economy", "item": "https://money.com/economy/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "This Outdoorsy Hipster State Has the Country's Healthiest Economy" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/", "name": "This Outdoorsy Hipster State Has the Country's Healthiest Economy", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-02-11T13:00:24.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:55:48.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "This Outdoorsy Hipster State Has the Country's Healthiest Economy", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/02/161002_em_hipstercity.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1424, "caption": "161002_EM_HIPSTERCITY" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-02-11T13:00:24.000Z", "description": "Using a wide range of criteria, a new study determined that Oregon is the state with the healthiest economy in the country.", "abstract": "Using a wide range of criteria, a new study determined that Oregon is the state with the healthiest economy in the country.", "@id": "https://money.com/oregon-best-economy/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:55:48.000Z", "wordCount": 247, "keywords": [ "Beer", "Economy", "Hipsters", "home sales", "Jobs", "Pot", "recreational marijuana" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy" ] } ] } ] } ```