Oregon Ranked Fifth Least Affordable State as Families Spend $18,300 a Year on Essentials

A new report has ranked Oregon as the 5^th least affordable state in the US for essential household costs, as Oregonians spend $18,300 every year- $2,900 more than the national average.

Oregon #5 in Affordability Rankings

Based on federal data modeled at the state level, the recent report from the Colorado-based think tank Common Sense Institute ranked Oregon #5 among the least affordable states for essentials such as housing, groceries, insurance, and child care.

While the state’s ranking hasn’t changed since 2019, average income has increased by 34%, but spending has not.

Compared with the national average of $15,400, Oregonians spend $18,300 annually on essentials. Income growth languished behind expenses as households effectively lost 2.4% of their gross income to higher prices.

The study modeled a household of four people: two adults working full-time at the state’s prevailing median hourly wage, and two children, one preschool-age and one school-age.

Using a range of sources, affordability was evaluated across seven categories: shelter and utilities, groceries, health insurance, car insurance, gasoline, child care, and the estimated combined state and federal tax liability.

Broken down into categories, Oregon’s cost increases from 2019 to 2025 were:

Households with children are particularly hard hit. Child care increased by a massive 55.4% between 2019 and 2025, accounting for 19.2% of household income in Oregon, the 10th-highest share nationally.

Costs jumped on average by $5,000 per year, a 39.4% jump, representing the largest increase among all necessities reflected in the report.

The primary driver of affordability challenges- housing costs (shelter and utilities)- increased by 33.4% since 2019 and accounts for 21.3% of household income in Oregon.

The state ranks as the 10th least affordable for housing costs. As the second-largest driver of the affordability decline, housing costs increased by $4,934 between 2019 and 2025, a roughly 34% increase.

There were slight improvements in average affordability between 2019 and 2025 for groceries, health insurance, and gas, although the US-Iran war will likely worsen gas prices.

Improved affordability does not mean prices fell; rather, it means prices increased at a rate lower than the rate at which income grew over the period. For example, groceries increased by 25.1% between 2019 and 2025 and fell by 0.6 percentage points as a share of income.

With one of the highest tax burdens in the country, including the second-highest income tax burden, Oregonians also had more taxes to shoulder. They had to squeeze off 1.2% more of their total monthly gross income to cover essentials in 2025 than they did in 2019.