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Portland has been a right-wing punching bag for half a decade now, for good reason. Now, five years removed from its peak insanity in 2020 during the summer of Black Lives Matter and antifa, Portland is still struggling to be a responsible, respectable city.
There are conflicting reports about whether Oregon’s population is increasing or continuing to decline, but one thing is undeniable: Oregon is no longer the hot destination it once was. According to Oregon state employment economist Gail Krumenauer, “Oregon has lagged the U.S. in the economic recovery and expansion.” Even the rosiest estimates, which have Oregon gaining residents, pale in comparison to the net migration gains Oregon made from the 1980s to the 2010s. The estimated gain for June 2024 to June 2025 was just 17,000 people.
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Take a brief look at how residents view life in Oregon, and specifically in its crown city of Portland, and you can see why enthusiasm for a move to the Pacific Northwest has cooled. A survey of Portland residents found that nearly half thought the city was on the wrong track, while around 25% thought it was on the right track. That is a complete flip from 2017, when 55% said Portland was headed in a positive direction and just 26% had a negative view.
Worse still, 52% of Portland residents expect to be worse off next year than they are now. Between homelessness, taxes, and the cost of living, Portland is a dead city walking.
You can see this slow, worsening decay in all those areas. Oregon ranks among the worst states in the country for business friendliness and the costs of doing business. Unemployment has risen from around 4% last year to 5.2%. According to the Tax Foundation, Portland residents are taxed at a higher rate than those of New York City. Starting in 2019 and accelerating in 2020, Portland began passing new taxes to fund a range of new programs, rapidly making life more expensive for people and businesses alike.
When you learn that 60% of Oregon’s economy relies on Portland’s business environment, it becomes clear that Portland isn’t just dragging itself down; it is dragging Oregon down with it.
The damage is clear when it comes to the city’s and state’s child populations. Oregon ranks 49th among the 50 states, ahead of Vermont, in birth rates. Whatever population gains the state is making are based on migration and immigration, and those gains are meager. Portland has seen a decline in the share of its population under the age of five, from 6.8% in 2005 to 4.8% in 2024. That puts it below the national average and below other prominent cities in the country, including Los Angeles, San Jose, Chicago, and even Las Vegas. Portland is simply too expensive for families. Combine that with homelessness and crime, which we will touch on later, and you can see why families aren’t interested in staying in the City of Roses.
As a result of this declining population of families and children, the Portland Public Schools district is facing a $50 million budget deficit for the 2026-2027 school year. In an initial draft plan on how to combat this deficit, Portland Public Schools is proposing cutting 288 full-time positions, cutting staff at every level of schooling. The district is also planning to blend classrooms — i.e., combine first and second grade. Portland has been battling school costs since 2022, driven in part by declining enrollment.
Portland has also been wrestling with chronic absenteeism from the dwindling number of students who remain in its public school system. A 2025 survey of Portland Public Schools students found a spike in students who reported skipping school due to safety concerns. Several parents recently took the media to discuss how they pulled their children from Faubion School, after a student allegedly brought a knife to school and threatened students, yet was not expelled.
Safety concerns are prevalent outside the school system as well. Homelessness remains the top concern of Portland residents, along with the health issues and public safety hazards that come with it. Portland has a ban on public camping, and Mayor Keith Wilson has had the city conduct homeless sweeps when encampments block sidewalks or buildings, are too close to schools, or are tied to violence or drug use. Members of Portland’s city council still push back on these homeless sweeps.
While some crime numbers look better than they have in recent years, Portland’s property crime rate remains 214% above the national average. (Yes, you read that correctly.) The city still has the second-highest total crime rate per 100,000 residents, ahead only of notoriously violent Memphis, Tennessee.
Despite homelessness being the biggest issue for Portlanders, and Mayor Wilson enforcing a public camping ban, there has still been no one convicted of violating the ban. A total of 20 people have been charged (one was charged twice, bringing the total cases to 21). Still, the Multnomah County prosecutor’s office has dismissed seven cases, six have been delayed due to a shortage of public defenders, and eight defendants simply haven’t shown up to court. Portland claims that around 110 people have chosen to enter homeless shelters when faced with the possibility of a citation, but without convictions, there is no mechanism to ensure they spend more than one night in a shelter before heading back out onto the streets.
Perhaps Portland residents could be more confident in local law enforcement if the city showed a little more contempt for lawbreaking and a little more concern for law-abiding residents. The ongoing immigration debate involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Democratic cities has shown that Portland law enforcement officials are too weak to inspire much fear in criminals.
This was evident after federal agents shot and killed two illegal immigrants in Portland earlier this year. Portland Police Chief Bob Day gave a press conference where he broke down in tears and apologized to the Latino community. Day said he did not want to “victim-blame” the two illegal immigrants who were shot here, and that the information he shared should in no way be seen as a justification for the actions of federal agents.
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What was that information? The two illegal immigrants in question were tied to Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang. Border Patrol agents came into contact with the suspects after tracking a car believed to be used in a Tren de Aragua prostitution ring, when one of the suspects allegedly began ramming the vehicle repeatedly into Border Patrol vehicles. Day, apparently, was sad that this may reflect poorly on the Latino community, and bent over backward to avoid justifying the attempted arrest of these two by federal law enforcement.
With that kind of leadership at the helm, it is no wonder that Portland residents don’t feel safe. Combine that with the tax burdens, the onerous cost of living, and the declining quality of life, and Portland is still in decline, five and a half years after the decline began in the summer of 2020.
