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News / Business / Clark County Business

Economists at Oregon forum: Don’t expect an imminent recession

Oregon Economic Forum focuses on recession potential, strategies for mobility

By Anthony Macuk, Columbian business reporter
Published: October 17, 2018, 4:57pm

There are signs that the economy is slowing down slightly following years of sustained growth, but panelists at the 15th Annual Oregon Economic Forum said Wednesday that a recession is likely still a few years away.

“We’re telling our investors it’s not set in stone,” said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank. “Stick to your guns for the present.”

McCain joined Oregon Economic Forum director Tim Duy for a panel focusing on economic reviews and forecasts at the event, held at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront.

The panelists discussed some of the potential warning signs that would be visible before a recession.

For example, McCain said that the yield curve — a line showing several yields or interest rates across different contract lengths — tends to invert roughly a year before a recession, and he said he thinks the economy is still one to two years away from that point.

The pair also noted that a future recession may not be as stark as the one that began in 2008, because impacts in one part of the economy don’t always spread to the rest. The 1990s tech bubble didn’t drag down the entire economy when it burst, McCain noted.

Duy pointed to the current economic climate as a good time for employers to address equity issues by improving employee services such as parental leave and child care, as well as focusing on training programs rather than trying to seek out “unicorn” employees that immediately fit every aspect of the job.

On a subsequent panel, Income and Benefits Policy Center vice president Gregory Acs gave a presentation about poverty and upward economic mobility, sharing the highlights from a recent commission study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Evaluating current economic conditions in the United States, Acs said the commission found that 47 percent of people in a generation who started at the bottom of the income distribution failed to rise over the course of their careers.

“Mobility is sticky, both at the top and the bottom of the income distributions,” he said.

He also cautioned that nationwide averages for mobility can obscure large disparities in mobility that exist along racial and geographic lines. African-Americans have less upward mobility than whites in the same income distribution, and some parts of the country show significantly higher levels of upward mobility than others.

The data also shows geographic disparities at more local levels, Acs said. Vancouver, for example, ranks fairly low for economic mobility compared to other parts of the Portland metro area, but mobility improves in areas east of Vancouver.

Acs said the commission wasn’t looking for one specific strategy to fully solve the issue of upward mobility, but came away with a number of suggestions. In particular, the commission found that mobility should be measured in terms of personal autonomy and value in the community in addition to simply raw economic success.

“To make real progress on upward mobility, we need to address all three aspects,” he said.

Acs listed several strategies to address some of the three mobility issues, including better access to jobs and requisite training for community college students, expanded earned income tax credits and a higher minimum wage in high-cost areas, expanded support services such as child care and criminal justice reform.

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Columbian business reporter