How exactly is the Oregon economy doing? If you read today's Salem Stateman Journal, you'll get somewhat conflicted results.

The paper's Tobey Manthey writes "Oregon economic forecast sours", explaining that the outlook has gone from dour to slightly worse this month. He writes thusly:

What had been forecast as a mild economic recovery likely will turn even milder.

[...]

The outlook for both jobs and personal-income growth has been downgraded slightly from the September forecast, state economist Tom Potiowsky said.

[...]

Economists still think that the recovery is intact. For 2004, Oregon is expected to see its first year of employment growth after three years of job losses. Job growth for 2004 is expected to be 1.8 percent, down from the previous forecast for 2 percent growth.

Jobs are not expected to reach pre-recession levels until the middle of next year. Employment growth for the next two years is expected to be modest, about 2 percent.

Personal income in Oregon for 2004 now is expected to grow 5.1 percent, down from earlier estimates of 5.6 percent. The decrease came because the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has revised state personal income figures and has showed substantially lower levels for 2003 and the first half of 2004.

According to this article, things are turning around--towards the wrong direction.

Political reporter Peter Wong takes a different look at the forecast, focusing more on its political ramifications. I'm not sure how the paper can run an article with the headline "Forecast for state's economy is mixed" when it also runs an article entitled "Oregon economic forecast sours", but perhaps that's just me. Wong leads with this:

Santa Claus skipped the Capitol on Tuesday.

The latest quarterly state economic forecast and income projections offered no unexpected bad news for a governor and legislators who have struggled with budget problems for the past three years.

But they offered no good news, either.

For the next two-year state budget, the report said, lawmakers will have about $11.2 billion from the state's discretionary general fund, which relies mainly on personal and corporate income taxes, and about $800 million from lottery funds.

State economist Tom Potiowsky said that the overall amount is down by about $75 million from the forecast in September, mostly because the amount to be carried over from this budget will be a little less.

"It's a small change, less than 1 percent," he said.

"We've seen a little bit of softness in the Oregon economy relative to the U.S. economy. But for the most part, it's pretty much a nonstory; there is almost no change."

He said that job growth in Oregon has slowed in the past three months, energy prices have soared and high-technology inventories are mounting.

"But the fundamentals of the U.S. economic recovery are still in place," he said.

So from what I gather from these two reports (The Oregonian's front page article today is less analytical than the two Statesman Journal pieces, but you should still check it out if interested), the Oregon economy is doing poorly, but not much worse than expected. Additionally, the statewide economic forecast is getting worse, but not substantially. This is tough stuff to follow (to say the least), but I'll try to parse through it as best I can...