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This new Washington Post article on state and local governments has Oregon in a unique situation: large revenue declines but job gains. Data technically right but misses unique context of Oregon. A thread https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/15/biden-stimulus-state-local-aid/
First Oregon’s revenues aren’t fundamentally down that much, once you account for the kicker. We paid out a large kicker in 2020 making revenue losses larger compared to 2019. See our post about that https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2020/12/18/state-revenues-in-comparison/
Second OR state government jobs are up since the pandemic started. Hiring in state call centers and for administering needs based programs is the reason. Most other types of state employment are flat.
What’s different is Oregon public universities are classified as local not state employment here. So the big loss of student workers, rec centers, dorms etc shows up as state jobs in most places but as local jobs in Oregon.
Sorry, messed up the thread https://twitter.com/or_econanalysis/status/1361384663177134089
