Coastal Life: Higher Costs, Lower Pay Economics Of Oregon’s Coast As Predictable As The Rain

It costs more to live on Oregon’s coast, but workers there earn less than inland Oregonians, and they’re more likely to get laid off.

Just like the winter rain, it’s part of life on the coast.

The average coastal wage is about $20,000 a year - about $6,000 less than across all of Oregon, said Brad Angle, a regional economist for the Oregon Department of Employment.

The other part of the coastal economic squeeze is that most residents find that money doesn’t go as far because of higher prices.

No coastal cost-of-living statistics are available, but an index compiled by the American Chamber of Commerce shows what coastal residents already know. While the national average is listed as 100, the index gives Lincoln County on the central coast a ranking of 112.5, with the housing index pegged at 134.5.

“That means the cost of housing was roughly 34.5 percent higher than the national average,” Angle said.

Some people leave. But others stick it out, some because they love the coast and the small and safe community lifestyle, or want to stay close to family. Some simply can’t afford to move.

Like elsewhere in Oregon, thousands of well-paying wood products jobs have vanished along the coast. Commercial fishing also has slumped.

New high-tech jobs have replaced many of those lost in the Willamette Valley, but few such opportunities have been created on the coast. Most new jobs along the coast - about 5,000 in the last two decades - are in service industries.

Businesses catering to the tourist trade and the coast’s growing number of senior citizens have proliferated.

About one in four of the new coastal jobs created since 1976 are in restaurants or motels. Service and trade industries now generate more than half the coastal employment, up from 35 percent 20 years ago. However, manufacturing businesses, which 20 years ago employed about 30 percent of the coastal work force, now employ just 14 percent.

“As the population has swelled, it’s brought increased demand for locally produced services and retail outlets,” Angle said. “But those services typically pay below-average wages. They tend to be seasonal in nature, and part-time. The structure of the economy has changed significantly.”

When adjusted for inflation, the average wage per job has fallen steadily since the late 1970s, with the buying power of that job declining by about 29 percent, Angle said.

The loss of middle-class jobs and a growing number of working poor comes at a time when many affluent retirees are moving to the coast, creating a more evident society of “haves and have-nots,” he said.

To get by, Barbara Apgar of Toledo holds down two $5.35-an-hour, no-benefits jobs in Newport totaling nearly 70 hours a week. The single mother with four children works as a caregiver and for a nonprofit assistance agency. She’s also a freelance hairdresser on nights and weekends.

Her days begin at 5 a.m. and don’t usually end until midnight.

“You learn to cook vegetarian, and you learn to use a lot of bulgur and a lot of rice and make meals stretch.”