This metric estimates the percent of Portland workers whose income meets their basic needs to support a family without public or private assistance.

Basic needs include: housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, miscellaneous expenses (clothing, telephone, household items), and taxes (minus federal and state tax credits) plus an additional calculation for emergency savings.

The share of workers living in Portland with a quality job is largely unchanged since 2019, suggesting that overall Portland residents have not been negatively affected by the 2020 pandemic and recovery.

However, breaking this data out by race, ethnicity, gender and neighborhood shows that communities across Portland have different experiences accessing jobs that pay a self-sufficient wage.

This indicator is calculated as how much a single adult with one school age child would have to earn to be self-sufficient in Portland, which is $65,000 in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars.

The Self-Sufficiency Standard defines the income working families need to meet their basic necessities without public or private assistance. Basic needs include: housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, miscellaneous expenses (clothing, telephone, household items), and taxes (minus federal and state tax credits) plus an additional calculation for emergency savings.

Read more about the methodology behind the Self Sufficiency Standard for Multnomah County.

The number of workers in Portland earning more than the Self-Sufficiency Standard comes from the annual US Census, American Community Survey, table S2001.