The latest U.S. Census Bureau population estimates showed that Oregon’s population shrank for the first time in decades, but other measures of the population tell a slightly different story.
The 2022 population estimates, released by the Census Bureau in late December, show that the state lost about 16,000 residents in the year leading up to July 1, 2022. That’s about 0.4% of the state’s population, putting Oregon among the top 10 fastest-shrinking states in the country.
But preliminary estimates by Portland State University’s Population Research Center, whose numbers serve as the state’s official population estimates between each decennial Census, show the opposite trend: The center estimates that Oregon gained 15,000 new residents over the same period, an increase of 0.35%.
Data from moving companies, like U-Haul and United Van Lines, also suggest that migration into Oregon increased in 2022.
So, what gives?
Ethan Sharygin, director of the Population Research Center at Portland State, said the federal and state numbers differ because each organization uses slightly different methodologies and data sets. Both population estimates begin with the counts from the 2020 national census, and both rely on records such as birth certificates, death certificates, driver’s licenses applied for or surrendered, and other indicators of population change.
Sharygin said one key difference is that the Census Bureau’s estimates are based in part on mailing addresses on IRS tax returns. Portland State researchers won’t have access to those records until much later in the year.
Portland State also incorporates socioeconomic data, including labor and housing market indicators, to estimate population changes.
As a result, its figures differed from the Census Bureau’s most dramatically when it came to estimates of Multnomah County’s population decline in 2022. (Portland State estimates that the county lost 3,000 residents in 2022; the Census Bureau’s estimate was four times that, Sharygin said, though those numbers haven’t yet been released.)
“Our model was way more bullish on Portland,” Sharygin said. “There’s a lot of jobs, there’s a lot of people with driver’s licenses, there’s a lot of new construction going on. So all of those factors tended to push our estimates higher.”
The two population estimates also have different starting points. Huda Alkitkat, population estimates program manager at Portland State, said the Census Bureau typically takes a “top-down” approach, starting with an estimate at the state-level and then dividing that number among Oregon’s counties, then cities and towns.
Portland State generally starts with county population estimates, Alkitkat said, and uses them to estimate state- and city-level numbers.
It will be months before Census Bureau migration data from 2022 will become available to the public.
In the meantime, data from moving companies, such as United Van Lines and U-Haul, can provide insight into trends that might likely emerge.
United Van Lines found that Oregon came in second among the list of states with the highest percentage of its customers moving inbound. Roughly 67% of moves were inbound, while 33% were outbound, the company’s data show.
The moving company analyzed more than 100,000 shipments it completed in 2022. Michael Stoll, professor of public policy and urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, who also works as a consultant for United Van Lines, said while the numbers only represent the company’s customer base, the data reflects broader migration trends.
“Over the last decade, Oregon has seen a lot of in-migration, especially from bordering states like California, of people with fairly high incomes who are at or near retirement age,” he said. “What we’re seeing in Oregon is consistent with national trends in that we see a lot of people moving away from big cities to mid-sized, or smaller places.”
According to United Van Lines data, Eugene-Springfield and Portland-Vancouver were among the top metropolitan statistical areas for inbound moves. The company found that 69% of moves in the Eugene area were inbound, while that number was 65% for the Portland area.
United Van Lines also surveys people who use their services, asking customers age, income and their reasons for moving, Stoll said.
“What we saw happen in Oregon this past year is different from previous years in that it wasn’t just retirees moving there, there’s also a lot more people within the 18 to 34 age range,” Stoll said. “Over 50% of people moving into Oregon using United Van Lines’ services last year were Gen Xers and millennials. And these are people who are college-educated and earning high incomes of $100,000 or more.”
U-Haul, too, found that more of its customers moved into Oregon than out, according to where people picked up and dropped off trucks and trailers.
U-Haul’s data shows that customers moving into Oregon primarily came from Washington, California, Arizona and Nevada. Oregon’s top growth cities, according to the report, are Happy Valley, Beaverton, Sherwood and Roseburg. Other cities that saw notable gains include Bend, Grants Pass, Corvallis, Klamath Falls, Tigard, and Ashland, according to U-Haul.
The moving company also tracks movement between Oregon cities. U-Haul’s data shows that many of those erstwhile Portlanders remained in the state: Eugene, Salem, Bend and Happy Valley were the top destinations for people who booked one-way U-Hauls out of town.
Jeff Lockridge, spokesperson for U-Haul, said a caveat to the company’s data is that “we do not know definitively if a one-way truck customer transaction is a residential move.”
“Our migration trends do not necessarily correlate directly to population changes, but they are a strong gauge of how effectively cities and states are attracting and maintaining residents,” he said.
—Kristine de Leon, kdeleon@oregonian.com