As local residents know, Clark County is a desirable place to live.
We enjoy a beautiful natural environment; a mix of urban and rural areas that provide a variety of amenities; easy access to a major city with vast entertainment options; a mild climate; an economy that is strong and resilient . . . and the list goes on. There is a reason Clark County’s population growth in recent years has exceeded that of the state, the Portland metro area and the United States.
But such desirability comes with a price. Demand causes prices to increase, an economic truism that has been confirmed by a recent study. A family budget map from the Economic Policy Institute indicates that Clark County has the fourth-highest cost of living in Washington, behind King, Snohomish and San Juan counties.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based organization, it costs $112,840 per year for a two-parent, two-child family to live in Clark County. The reasons are evident.
“This is a really attractive area of the world to be in,” Evan Sowers of the Riverview Trust Company told The Columbian. “There’s been a lot of support and investment in our part of the world, and I think that has driven the cost of living up.”
Clark County’s cost of $9,400 per month is well below King County’s $11,260. It also is well below the approximately $11,000 per month in other Portland-area counties – Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas on the Oregon side – a fact that attracts residents who desire to leave Portland while remaining in the region.
As Sowers said: “Some people see Clark County as having all of the benefits of being in the Portland metro area, but maybe not necessarily having a lot of the tax expenses.”
For those who live and work in Clark County, those benefits extend to not paying income tax but having access to Oregon’s no-sales-tax retailers. Calculations from the Economic Policy Institute suggest that the typical tax burden for a family of four in Clark County is approximately $1,000 per month – about half the tax burden in the rest of the metro area.
With news of the report coming shortly before the 2024 election, the item takes on added meaning. It also leads to questions about how elected officials impact the cost of living. Despite common election-time rhetoric, public policy offers limited tools for reducing those costs.
Kamala Harris’ economic plan calls for a ban on corporate price gouging – an ill-defined and impossible-to-enforce pipe dream. Donald Trump has stressed increasing domestic oil production to reduce prices – ignoring the fact that production has increased under the Biden administration since Trump left office.
One policy that would have a significant impact on inflation is Trump’s plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on imports, particularly those from China. The cost of tariffs would be passed along to consumers, and other countries would respond with counter-tariffs – raising costs for American households and hurting American producers. That policy would be particularly damaging in trade-dependent Washington.
Either way, the proposals highlight the need for Congress to take a more active role in economic policy, rather than ceding the issue to an imperial presidency.
While such policies are at the forefront of the discussion during election season, the fundamental causes of inflation are supply and demand. In Clark County, demand is strong because this is a desirable locale. It is a relatively small price to pay for living here.
