By Oregon Business and Industry,
What happened: On Jan. 29, OBI’s government affairs team described some of Oregon’s most pressing competitive challenges to the House Committee on Economic Development, Small Business and Trade. Senior Policy Director Duke Shepard shared key findings of a 2024 report on the condition of Oregon’s manufacturing sector conducted by ECOnorthwest on behalf of the OBI Research and Education Foundation. Executive Vice President and General Counsel Paloma Sparks discussed a handful of worrisome trends that demonstrate Oregon’s declining competitiveness. Watch their testimony by clicking the video to the right.
Highlights: Oregon historically has excelled in manufacturing, and manufacturing jobs pay more than jobs in other industries across all levels of educational attainment. However, the growth of Oregon’s manufacturing sector has fallen behind that in most other states since the COVID pandemic. State Economist Carl Riccadonna recently declared that Oregon had entered a “manufacturing sector recession.” To increase Oregon’s appeal to manufacturers and other businesses, policymakers must first heed warning signs pointing to the state’s eroding business environment. These include its steady decline in business-focused rankings, including CNBC’s annual America’s Best States for Business rankings, which in 2024 deemed Oregon only the 48th most business-friendly state in the nation.
Why it matters: States compete fiercely for business investment. Unless Oregon becomes more competitive, Oregonians will lose job opportunities and state and local governments will lose revenue businesses and their employees generate. A thriving private sector makes for a thriving public sector.
What OBI is doing: OBI’s Oregon Competitiveness Agenda identifies some of the challenges Oregon faces and recommends policies to address them, from tax-code changes to regulatory reform. A few specific proposals that would improve the conditions described by Paloma and Duke include the creation of an Office of Economic Opportunity that would, among other things, help businesses navigate regulatory requirements; corporate activity tax relief for small businesses; and the expansion of Oregon’s research and development tax credit. OBI will focus much of its work this session on issues identified by the Oregon Competitiveness Agenda.
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